WITH 
THREE 
ARMIES 


WITH  THREE  ARMIES 


His  Majesty  the  King  of  the  Belgians 
Photographed  in  Belgium,  1917 


With  Three  Armies 

On  and  Behind  the  Western  Front 


By 
ARTHUR  STANLEY  RIGGS,  F.R.G.S. 

Author  of 

France  From  Sea  to  Sea,  Vistas 

in  Sicily,  Etc. 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS, 
CARTOONS,  POSTERS  AND  PLACARDS 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


j^y.'K 


o 


copybight  1918 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


PRCB3    OF 

BRAUNWORTH    81    CO. 

BOOK    MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLVN,    N.    V. 


TO 

E.  C.  R. 

WHOSE  FAITH  AND  VISION 
ALONE  MADE  THIS  BOOK  POSSIBLE 


395482 


INTRODUCTION 

Of  books  about  the  war  there  is  no  end.  That  is  my  ex- 
cuse for  perpetrating  one.  Had  there  been  one  book,  or 
even  a  dozen  books,  I  should  have  hesitated  long  to  thrust 
my  effort  into  so  select  and  easily  identified  a  company. 
But  the  numbers  that  have  appeared  have  included  some 
so  unusually  hasty  and  badly  done,  I  dare  cherish  hope 
for  a  comfortable  nonentity  such  as  the  present  volume. 

Moreover,  the  sanguine  reader  may  be  assured  of  certain 
soothing  things.  Here  is  nothing  official.  No  luminary 
of  any  War  Cabinet  has  endorsed  anything  I  write,  or 
prefaced  it  by  any  eulogistic  foreword.  The  views  pre- 
sented and  the  things  seen  are  the  views  and  observations 
merely  of  an  ordinarily  intelligent  layman,  not  in  the 
least  concerned  with  the  purely  military  or  strategic  aspects 
of  the  deadly  game. 

To  the  average  man,  this  war  has  brought  a  total  revi- 
sion of  thought.  For  thinking  in  regiments  and  batteries, 
he  has  had  to  substitute  thinking  in  armies  of  millions 
and  whole  parks  of  artillery.  For  battles  covering  a  con- 
ceivable area  and  a  few  days  at  most,  he  has  had  to  hear 
of  battle-fronts  hundreds  of  miles  long,  and  of  conflicts 
dragged  into  months  without  cessation.  All  this  has  con- 
veyed to  him  one  thing:  monstrous  size.    Not  having  seen 


INTEODUCTIOI!^ 

it  himself,  he  can  not  grasp  it.  Consequently,  the  war  is 
emotionally  nothing  to  him;  it  leaves  him  cold,  chilled  by 
its  aggregate  of  horror. 

I  have  tried  to  do  something  different  from  the  technical, 
philosophical  and  personal  accounts  which  make  up  the 
bulk  of  the  war  books;  tried  to  give  a  view  broader  than 
that  of  either  the  individual  fighter,  the  strategist  or  the 
philosopher;  tried,  in  a  word,  to  bring  the  war  home  to 
the  reader  who  may  possibly  be  either  too  remote  or  too 
indifferent  to  realize  from  anything  he  has  read  hitherto 
how  big  and  how  small,  how  heroic  and  how  bestial,  how 
exceedingly  far  from  and  how  crushed  up  against  his  very 
soul,  this  war  is.  In  so  far  as  I  may  have  succeeded  in 
this  perhaps  too  daring  task,  the  work  will  have  been  well 
worth  while. 

In  scant  but  hearty  appreciation  of  the  generous  help 
given  in  securing  much  of  my  material,  I  am  constrained 
to  say  only  that  I  am  under  heavy  obligations  to  the  offi- 
cials of  the  Maison  de  la  Presse,  Ministere  des  Affaires 
Etrangeres,  of  Paris,  to  the  Secretaries  of  Embassy  in 
Paris,  the  Staff  and  other  officers  of  the  Prench,  British 
and  Belgian  Armies  under  whose  supervision  my  visits 
were  made  to  the  different  fighting  fronts,  and  to  many 
others.  I  regret  that  the  present  code  of  the  Allied  Gov- 
ernments does  not  ^arrant  me  in  naming  the  individuals 
to  whom  this  debt  of  gratitude  and  appreciation  is  due. 


INTRODUCTION 

But  they  all,  like  the  nameless  soldiers  and  other  persons 
who  move  with  more  or  less  reality  through  the  succeeding 
pages,  are  playing  the  game  in  patient  anonymity,  satisfied 
to  do  their  respective  parts  in  laying,  wide  and  deep,  the 
foundations  for  what  I  believe  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart  will  be  a  peace  that  can  and  will  prevent  '^any  more 
war."   Finis  coronal  opus!  A.  S.  R. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  PAGE 

I    Through  Infested  Seas 1 

II     Behind  the  Feont 20 

III  The  Armies  on  the  Western  Front    ....  37 

IV  Les  Yankees  and  Their  Special  Providences     .  54 
V  The  British  in  France:  An  Historical  Contrast  68 

VI    Along  the  British  Front 83 

VII  Farther   along    the    British    Front — And   Be- 
hind It 98 

VIII    Heroic  Belgium 117 

IX  Of  All  These  the  Bravest  Are  the  Belgians     .  131 

X  The  Psychology  of  the  German  Atrocities       .  145 

XI    Hate 159 

XII    Reconstruction        178 

XIII  French  Schools  in  War  Time 193 

XIV  In  the  Blue  Alsatian  Mountains 209 

XV    Alsace  and  Its  Problems 229 

XVI    A  Saving  Humor  and  a  New  Art 250 

XVII     Left-Overs 265 

XVIII    The  Time  Is  Out  of  Joint — 283 

XIX    Will  the  End  Crown  the  Work? 294 


WITH  THREE  ARMIES 


'A 


WITH  THREE  ARMIES 


CHAPTER  I 

THEOUGH  INFESTED  SEAS 

The  full  blaze  of  an  August  Sunday — New  York  silent 
and  deserted,  save  for  the  occasional  trolley  car  half  filled 
and  rambling  along  without  its  usual  air  of  desperate  need 
for  haste — the  shimmer  of  heat  waves  rising  from  cobble 
and  sidewalk — idle  crossing  police  yawning  at  their  posts 
— scattered  pedestrians  with  their  Sunday  papers,  and  fam- 
ilies with  baskets  getting  a  belated  start  for  "the  Island." 

Even  the  great  steamship  piers  looked  bored.  Outside 
stood  a  hundred  motor  cars.  Around  the  entrance  a  man  or 
two  in  uniform,  some  "Watch  yer  car?''  boys,  and  a  little 
knot  of  men  and  women  were  all  that  indicated  the  slightest 
activity.  Within  the  huge,  barn-like  structures  all  was  quiet : 
the  elevators  moved  up  and  down  silently,  the  few  incoming 
passengers  did  little  talking,  and  even  the  stevedores  han- 
dling the  last  remaining  barrels  and  crates,  trunks  and 
other  baggage  disappearing  into  the  hatches  of  the  great 
gray  French  liner  which  sizzled  in  the  dirty  green  oiliness 
beside  the  pier  were  silent  and  careful.    Going-away  day  in 

1 


2  WITH    THEEE    ARMIES 

war  time  is  not  like  similar  occasions  in  the  care-free  days 
of  peace. 

We  all  streamed  slowly  through  the  gate  on  the  upper 
deck  of  the  pier  with  a  rustling  display  of  passports  and 
tickets,  dock-passes  and  the  like.  Beyond,  alongside  the 
gangway  giving  upon  the  hot  white  deck  of  the  vessel, 
ranged  another  fence,  flanked  by  a  row  of  tall  desks  at 
which  United  States  Customs  Inspectors  wrote  busily, 
pounded  occasionally  with  rubber  stamps,  and  asked  grave 
questions.  To  pass  that  direct-eyed  row  of  watchdogs,  and 
their  attendant  satellites,  lynx-eyed  fellows  who  said  noth- 
ing and  saw  everything,  all  one's  papers  and  replies  had  to 
be  in  order.  Again  and  again  one  replied  or  wrote  state- 
ments as  to  birth,  nativity,  reasons  for  going  abroad  in  war 
time,  and  so  on;  and  the  answers  had  to  tally  to  the  last 
dot  over  an  i  and  the  last  crossing  of  a  t 

Outside  this  proscribed  area  stood  the  wives  and  mothers, 
sweethearts  and  friends  of  the  travelers.  A  certain  tense 
grimness  inhered;  the  laughter  was  a  little  forced,  and  an 
air  of  anxious  expectation  mantled  every  one  not  actually 
going.  Tlie  sprinkling  of  khaki  and  French  horizon  blue 
burned  like  Very  lights  in  the  dinginess  of  the  vast  pier 
shed. 

A  hoarse  whistle  spluttered ;  we  passed  on  board,  craned 
our  necks  to  see  those  who  felt  sure  they  should  very  likely 
never  see  us  again,  and  sought  vantage  points  on  the  upper 
deck  from  which  to  stare  back  at  them.  Nagged  out  into 
midstream  by  the  waspish  tugs,  we  turned  our  majestic 


THEOUGH    INFESTED    SEAS  3 

gray  bulk  slowly  broadside  to  the  pier.  There  they  were 
— out  at  the  end — a  multi-colored  blob:  wives,  sisters, 
friends,  servants,  longshoremen,  framed  by  the  slowly  re- 
ceding pier's  stark  walls  of  corrugated  iron  and  scaly  drab 
paint.  Handkerchiefs  waved;  a  green  parasol  jerked  up 
and  down  frantically  in  farewell  signals.  Through  the 
glasses  we  could  see  them,  these  brave  girls  we  left  behind 
us,  knew  they  were  trying  to  smile  even  when  they  knew 
we  could  not  see  them.  We  moved  southward  with  reluctant 
slowness.  The  blob  of  colors  became  a  mere  fluttering, 
imagist  speck  of  white  against  the  ragged  gulches  and  peaks 
of  Kew  York's  architectural  sierra.  We  caught  our  collective 
breath  with  a  snort  of  the  whistle,  gathered  speed,  looked 
at  one  another  inquiringly. 

Why  were  we  all  so  different,  yet  so  much  like  the  trav- 
elers of  peace  times,  going  cold-bloodedly  into  the  gravest 
dangers  that  ever\ beset  people  at  sea  ?  The  giant  beside  me 
who  had  come  so  much  on  the  run  he  had  forgotten  to  shave, 
this  little,  frail,  middle-aged  lady  with  thick  eye-glasses 
and  tremulous  fingers,  yonder  rubicund  pair  in  tweed  caps 
and  broad  smiles — what  reasons  lay  behind  each  purpose? 
What  reason,  rather.  For,  as  we  came  in  the  ensuing  days, 
of  half  guessed  and  little  understood  dangers,  to  know 
and  value  one  another,  the  common  purpose  and  nobility; 
came  forward  modestly,  but  none  the  less  surely.  America  I 
France!  Civilization  triumphant!  There  was  the  reason. 
Whatever  the  ostensible  excuse  for  embarking,  the  true 
purpose  beneath  was  the  desire,  passionately  eager  on  the 


'4:  WITH   THKEE    ARMIES 

part  of  some,  dogged  m  others,  unthinking  or  reasoned  out 
— it  all  came  to  the  one  thing :  each  one  would  serve  as  best 
he  or  she  might. 

As  we  moved  down  the  harbor  alone,  the  gay  Coney 
Island  steamboats,  crowded  with  holiday-makers,  saluted 
us  with  fluttering  white  greetings;  but  the  silent  vessels 
at  anchor,  which  had  come  through  the  barred  zones, 
stared  in  wordless,  signless  comprehension  of  our  errand. 
Across  our  path  in  the  lower  Bay  stretched  a  line  of 
cylindrical  white  floats — ^the  submarine  and  torpedo  net. 
"We  passed  through  its  open  "gate"  and  out  to  sea. 
Definite  safety  lay  behind  us,  the  adventure  ibefore.  On 
the  forecastle  head,  unheeding  anything  but  their  grim 
preparations,  four  naval  gunners  in  the  chic  striped  blue- 
and-white  jerseys,  red-tufted  tam-o'-shanters  and  tight 
blue  uniforms  of  the  French  !N'avy,  gave  us  a  sudden, 
theatrical  appreciation  of  what  we  were  going  into,  as 
nothing  else  possibly  could. 

Deliberately  they  stripped  away  the  gray  canvas  cover- 
ing of  the  French  Seventy-five.  They  oiled  it,  they  tested 
its  various  training  devices,  they  swung  it  to  and  fro  and 
up  and  down,  to  make  certain  of  its  instant  readiness. 
And  then  for  half  an  hour  the  men  passed  up  and  down 
in  stolid  silence,  between  gun  and  magazine,  carrying  the 
businesslike  gray  shells  and  stowing  them  in  their  proper 
racks  near  the  piece,  whose  threatening  muzzle  protruded 
over  one  bow.  They  moved  with  such  precision  and  ease, 
they  handled  the  deadly  shells  with  such  easy  familiarity, 


THROUGH   i:NrFESTED   SEAS  5 

that  nervous  little  chills  trickled  up  and  down  one's  spine. 
Did  not  their  ease  and  smoothness  argue  the  same,  or 
even  greater  discipline  and  swiftness  on  the  part  of  the 
murderous  pirates  for  whom  they  were  preparing?  No- 
body talked  much  about  it,  but  every  one  who  saw  looked 
a  little  soberer  for  some  time  afterward. 

Outside  Sandy  Hook,  rolling  gently  in  the  light  ground 
swell,  patrol  after  patrol,  from  the  new,  ugly  motor  craft 
to  converted  cruisers,  ancient  torpedo-boats  and  con- 
verted yachts,  examined  us  with  microscopic  accuracy. 
Beyond,  the  lightship;  later,  the  fading  blue  smudge  of 
the  Highlands;  then  the  open  sea.  We  began  to  unpack, 
to  study  one  another,  to  squabble  for  places  at  the  tables. 
Eor  the  moment,  the  tension  was  gone,  and  we  chattered 
about  lost  baggage,  the  brilliant  weather,  where  we  should 
have  our  chairs  placed,  and  who's  who,  exactly  as  a  normal 
crowd  of  normal  times  would. 

We  were  a  motley  throng  indeed.  A  dignified  French 
military  commission,  returning  home  after  its  work  in 
Washington,  made  a  bright  spot  of  sky  blue  against  the 
khaki  of  an  American  ambulance  unit;  a  bevy  of  eighteen 
young  women  stenographers  and  clerks  gathered  hastily 
from  heaven  knows  where  and  destined  for  the  Red  Cross 
offices  in  Paris;  three  journalists;  a  small  group  of  ladies 
of  independent  means  going  to  make  surgical  dressings  in 
a  hospital  in  Paris;  a  Bishop  in  black  clericals;  a  hearty, 
cheery,  wholesome  crowd  of  splendid  Y.  M.  C.  A.  workers ; 
and  a  scattering  of  other  individuals  gave  us  perhaps  mere 


6  3^ITH    THREE    ARMIES 

character  than  ordinary.  Unfortunately,  some  of  this  char- 
acter was  bad.  A  few  individuals  on  that  ship  were  guilty 
of  repeated  indiscretions  so  flagrant  they  astonished  the 
French  officers  and  made  every  other  passenger  wonder 
why  it  was  necessary,  even  at  such  a  time,  to  select  volun- 
teers apparently  without  thought  or  care.  If  America  is 
to  do  her  part  in  this  war  according  to  the  best  traditions 
of  the  country,  it  is  a  grave  mistake  to  send  any  young 
man  or  woman  overseas  to  represent  us  without  first  prov- 
ing beyond  peradventure  the  applicant's  character  and  be- 
havior. 

In  welcome  contrast  to  these  were  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  men 
and  the  Red  Cross  inspectors.  For  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  no 
praise  can  ever  be  regarded  as  payment  for  the  work  its 
members  have  done  and  are  doing.  The  old  idea  that  the 
organization  is  a  namby-pamby,  goody-goody  club,  with  a 
dash  of  conventional  religion  thrown  in  to  leaven  the  lump 
has  been  thoroughly  disproved  by  the  war.  In  Russia, 
Serbia,  Italy,  Belgium,  wherever  the  war  has  touched  the 
raw  of  humanity,  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  gone  with  but  one 
idea — service.  Neither  self  nor  sectarianism,  neither  dan- 
ger nor  cost,  neither  frightfulness  nor  death  has  been  able 
to  stop  these  men,  whose  creed  is  humanity,  whose  idea  of 
service  is  the  limit  of  their  powers. 

Came  a  week  of  calm,  under  bright  skies  and  on  smooth 
waters.  Nothing  happened,  yet  something  happened  every 
moment.  Gradual  efforts  to  settle  down  and  study  or  work, 
crystallized  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  effort  to  learn  college-yell 


THROUGH    INPESTED    SEAS  7 

French,  to  the  bewilderment  of  the  French  officers  and  the 
amusement  of  every  one  who  already  had  a  smattering  of 
that  exquisite  tongue.  Every  morning  at  ten  o'clock  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  men,  under  the  vigorous  leadership  of  a  former 
Professor  of  Theology  in  the  University  at  Tokio,  Japan, 
met  in  a  circle  on  the  promenade  deck  and  studied  French 
with  all  the  zest  of  college  boys  learning  to  cheer  their 
teams  on  to  victory.  The  instruction  was  beautifully  simple 
— so  were  the  results ! 

Standing  before  the  class,  the  cheer  leader,  book  in  hand, 
"lined  out"  a  word  or  a  phrase,  repeating  it  until  the  class 
caught  something  at  least  of  its  pronunciation.  Then  they 
all  yelled  it  in  unison,  to  the  time  the  leader  kept  witH 
flail-like  arms: 

3e  prends  Vomnihus! 
Je  prends  Vomnihus! 

Je  prends,  je  prends, 

Je  prends,  je  prends, 
Je  prends  V OMNIBUS! 

was  a  typical  example  that  made  the  decks  quiver,  its  for- 
tissimo declaration  of  "I  take  the  omnibus"  so  conclusive 
no  Frenchman  could  possibly  doubt  the  intention  of  Moifir 
sieur  VAmericain  to  take  any  omnibus  he  chose. 

The  days  passed.  Those  nervous  women  who,  the  first 
night  out,  slept  in  their  chairs  on  deck,  so  they  could  be 
ready  to  pop  into  the  boats  at  the  first  alarm,  became  less 
—well,  emotional.  The  heat  of  tbe  first  few  days  gave 
place  to  the  usual  Atlantic  chill,  and  then  came  the  life- 


8  WITH    THEEE    AEMIES 

belt  drill,  superintended  in  person  by  the  liner's  Captain,  a 
French,  naval  Lieutenant. 

Lined  up  on  the  promenade  deck  opposite  our  respective 
boats'  numbers,  we  made  a  group  any  cinematographer 
would  have  given  a  month's  pay  to  film  for  the  ^^movies." 
Two  journalists,  both  rotund  as  Bernini  cherubs,  raised  a 
gust  of  laughter  when  they  fastened  on  their  belts  in  such 
a  way  that  they  could  pose  as  the  twins  of  a  famous  ad- 
vertisement. Even  the  rather  grim-looking  Captain  had  to 
laugh  at  their  grotesque  appearance  as  he  went  down  the 
voluble  line,  tightening  a  belt  here,  hitching  one  up  there, 
warning  this  lady  that  she  must  do  so  and  so  with  hers  if 
she  did  not  wish  to  capsize  and  float  feet  upward,  smiling 
good  naturedly  at  the  patent  life-saving  suits  of  rubber, 
with  their  pockets  for  food  and  their  whistles  to  call  help. 

Another  day  we  had  a  war-fund  entertainment  with  a 
tombola,  or  lottery,  a  charade  in  which  the  principal  was 
one  of  the  French  officers — ^no  mean  actor,  by  the  way — an 
American  Ambulancier  as  prestidigitator,  and  an  auction 
of  all  sorts  of  things,  from  American  flags  and  handker- 
chiefs to  bottles  of  champagne  and  boxes  of  cigarettes, 
which  sold  for  figures  that  made  war-time  prices  in  the 
stores  blush  for  shame.  A  pint  of  champagne  at  twenty  dol- 
lars, and  fifty  cigarettes  at  ten  were  fair  samples  of  the  way 
the  passengers  chose  to  contribute  to  the  fund. 

Our  first  real  sensation,  a  half-hour  of  excitement  and 
wonder,  turned  afternoon  tea  cold  and  profitless  with  its 
sinister  suggestion  of  some  maneuver  we  could  not  under- 


THROUGH    INFESTED    SEAS  9 

stand.  The  day  was  brilliant  and  the  sea  smooth  when, 
just  after  the  stewards  had  finished  inquiring  ^^One  lump, 
sir — cream  T'  we  sighted  two  west-bound  vessels  off  the  star- 
board bow.  The  one  in  the  lead  was  an  empty  tanker, 
homeward  bound  for  another  cargo  of  the  precious  essence, 
the  other  a  lofty-sided  freighter  of  the  usual  type. 

While  we  watched,  the  big  freighter  began  an  astonish- 
ing series  of  evolutions  behind  and  around  the  tanker, 
which  moved  at  an  unusually  slow  pace,  if  she  were  moving 
at  all.  Meantime,  we  wobbled  about  over  half  the  compass 
ourselves,  with  the  reinforced  gunners  standing  to  their 
piece  in  readiness,  and  the  bridge  fully  alert.  One  or  two 
of  the  older  ladies,  and  a  girl  who  had  one  of  the  patented 
life-saving  suits,  made  ready  to  pop  into  their  preservers 
at  an  instant's  warning.  That  ungainly  suit  of  rubber, 
with  its  catfish-like  mouth  yawning  beside  its  owner's  chair 
in  a  Gargantuan  grin,  made  the  preparations  seem  some- 
How  inexpressibly  droll  and  unreal. 

Around  the  deck  pattered  two  barefoot  sailors,  saying 
never  a  word.  But  they  let  down  Jacob's  ladders  beside 
each  life-boat.  More  than  anything  else,  that  convinced  the 
most  hardy  and  skeptical  of  the  nearness  of  something 
unpleasant.  By  this  time  our  own  ship  and  the  freighter 
were  near  enough  to  signal  intelligently,  and  in  ten  minutes 
things  were  at  normal  again,  both  ships  on  their  courses, 
and  the  cold  tea  resumed  amid  excited  chatter.  That  was 
what  actually  happened  in  every  one's  sight.  What  was 
afterward  related,  on  the  authority  of  every  oflScer  aboard, 


10  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

from  the  Captain  down,  constituted  a  volume  of  fables  that 
would  have  made  a  telling  sequel  to  Munchhausen — or 
^^Doc"Cook! 

It  was  noticeable,  however,  that  evening  at  dinner,  that 
the  Captain  did  not  linger  in  his  usual  genial  fashion ;  and 
next  morning,  when  we  had  penetrated  the  outer  edge  of 
the  danger  zone  Germany  has  so  thoughtfully  marked  out 
as  a  happy  hunting  ground  for  submarines,  every  boat  swung 
outboard  clear  of  its  davits,  the  falls  cleared,  the  gear  all 
inspected  and  stowed  in  every  boat,  the  life-rafts  ready, 
and  the  long  cases  on  the  boat-deck,  containing  life-belts 
for  the  crew,  opened  and  their  contents  laid  flat  on  the 
flaps  of  the  engine-room  hatch,  where  they  were  instantly 
accessible.  Aft,  a  life-raft  on  each  side  of  the  ship  was  half 
launched,  thrusting  its  ugly  catamaran  snout  far  out  over 
the  rail,  so  that  no  matter  how  far  the  ship  might  list  in 
the  opposite  direction,  half  a  dozen  lively  men  could  thrust 
the  raft  into  the  sea,  which  lay  almost  as  flat  as  a  mill- 
pond. 

And  that  night  danger  passed  close  by  us.  Of  course,  the 
nearer  we  approached  the  French  coast,  the  greater  the 
danger,  and  the  majority  of  the  passengers  slept,  or  rather 
lay  and  murmured  uneasily,  most  of  the  night  in  their 
chairs,  or  paced  monotonously  up  and  down  the  throbbing 
decks.  About  eight  o'clock  the  next  morning,  when  I  came 
up  from  my  berth  feeling  very  fit,  I  met  one  pallid  speci- 
men. He  was  a  big  man,  with  a  round  face.  Now,  in  the 


THROUGH    INFESTED    SEAS  11 

chill  of  morning,  his  nose  was  pink,  and  he  assumed  the 
woebegone  expression  of  a  pitifully  tired  child. 

"Still  goin'  'round  and  'round  and  'round/'  he  said 
weakly.  "Began  at  dark  last  night.  Are  we  afloat  yet?" 

A  long,  low,  dimly  green  line  piped  with  white,  resting 
upon  a  mysteriously  intangible  background  of  something 
neither  sea  nor  sky  nor  land — France!  And  speeding 
straight  out  from  it  toward  us,  a  knife-like  slash  of  foam 
in  the  green  and  purple  seas,  below  a  taupe  wisp  of  smoke, 
proclaimed  the  dirty  gray  little  French  torpedo  craft  sent 
to  convoy  us  through  the  dangerous  inshore  waters  border- 
ing the  mouth  of  the  river  up  which  we  were  to  steam  for 
hours  before  reaching  our  dock.  The  torpilleiir  swept  down 
upon  us  majestically,  circled  once  around  to  make  certain 
of  our  innocence,  drew  off  to  one  side  and  pulled  ahead  a 
little  to  lead  the  way.  Scarcely  had  she  taken  position 
when  in  the  farther  skies  appeared  a  pale  yellow  shape- 
lessness.  Half  an  hour,  and  the  yellow  blur  was  a  huge 
French  dirigible  hanging  directly  above  us,  a  tremendous 
triple  sausage  of  khaki,  beneath  which  hung  a  gray  and 
red  car,  spitting  a  rackety  stream  of  thin  gasoline  vapor 
out  behind  as  her  propeller  drove  her  at  four  times  our 
speed.  She  could  not  hear  the  roaring  cheers  that  surged 
up  from  our  decks  as  the  Ambulance  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.  con- 
tingents realized  what  she  meant  and  was.  In  a  few  min- 
utes she  was  buzzing  away  again,  lumbering  through  the 
hazy  atmosphere  like  a  huge  bumble  bee,  hunting  the 
waters  for  any  sign  of  menace. 


12  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

*^\Vell/'  remarked  one  American  who  had  kept  his  knowl- 
edge to  himself  until  after  the  convoys  by  water  and  air 
had  appeared,  "this  convoy  business  is  all  right,  of  course, 
but  it's  not  necessary.  The  French  just  do  it  to  make  us 
feel  safer.  The  fact  is — I  got  this  straight,  and  I  know  it's 
so — the  Germans  own  so  much  stock  in  the  French  steam- 
ship lines  that  they  don't  try  to  torpedo  any  of  their  ships. 
Just  throw  a  little  scare  into  'em  now  and  then,  but  no 
harm  meant." 

How  a  near-sighted  submarine  could  distinguish  between 
a  favored  French  ship  and  a  vessel  of  some  other  country 
at  night  or  in  a  storm  apparently  did  not  enter  into  the 
calculation. 

IJp  the  river  we  steamed,  past  little  towns  apparently 
untouched  by  war,  moving  slowly  through  the  loveliness 
that  only  rural  France  can  display,  coming  with  the  dark- 
ness to  the  great  seaport  where  we  were  not  yet  expected, 
and  few  preparations  had  been  made  to  receive  us  at  the 
crowded  wharves.  Wlienever  we  were  within  hailing  dis- 
tance of  either  bank,  the  more  enthusiastic  ambulance  men, 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  boys  and  others  roared  out  their  good  will  and 
sympathy  in  sheer  animal  spirits  and  delight  to  the  silent 
and  amused  peasants  along  the  shore : 

''Veev-a  law  Franssss!  Tou- jours!  Tou- jours  veev-a  Jaw 
FrcmssssT 

On  the  outskirts  of  town,  clustered  along  the  river-bank, 
are  the  buildings  of  a  great  camp  of  German  prisoners.  As 
the  boys  saw  the  unexpected  blond  faces  and  field  gray  of 


THROUGH   INFESTED    SEAS  13 

the  Germans  inside  the  wire  stockade,  their  cheering  died 
as  abruptly  as  if  it  had  been  choked  off.  An  instant  later 
a  deep  growl  ran  along  the  rail  from  bow  to  stern.  We 
passed  the  camp  almost  in  silence.  Not  quite  .  .  .  One 
civilian  went  about  from  group  to  group  on  the  promenade 
deck,  always  asking  the  same  plaintive  question : 

"Haven't  got  an  automatic  in  your  clothes,  have  you?  I 
may  never  get  such  a  good  chance  again  at  those  d — d 
Heinies !" 

I  had  wished  from  the  beginning  of  the  war,  if  I  could 
not  serve  in  it  myself,  to  know  exactly  what  was  happening 
"Over  There,'^  and  also  what  happened  on  a  trip  across  at 
such  a  time.  Now  I  knew  about  the  trip,  and,  given  any 
credentials  at  all,  it  seemed  very  easy  to  reach  the  war.  zone. 
What  happened  in  the  thrilling,  inspiring,  soul-awakening 
months  that  I  was  able  to  spend  on  and  behind  the  actual 
western  fronts  themselves,  form  the  chapters  that  follow 
this  one.  By  a  strictly  orderly  procedure,  I  should  leave 
the  return  voyage  for  the  last  chapter.  But  to  keep  my  final 
pages  clear  for  the  far  more  vital  considerations  with  which 
I  hope  to  fill  them,  and  to  afford  a  convenient  comparison 
between  the  voyage  across,  to  France,  and  the  return  voy- 
age, by  way  of  England  to  the  IJnited  States,  it  seems 
wisest  to  sketch  that  final  trip  here. 

Easy  though  it  was  to  reach  the  war  zone,  when  the  time 
came  to  go  home,  I  found  it  anything  but  easy  to  leave. 
The  beloved  French  police,  who  bad  been  loath  to  receive 


14  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

me,  who  had  made  me  swear  to  having  been  born,  and  to 
being  alive,  to  being  married  yet  to  being  alone  in  France 
when  I  arrived,  now  seemed  equally  loath  to  let  me  go.  The 
difficulties  they  interposed  are  perfectly  reasonable  in  time 
of  war  but  none  the  less  trying  to  any  one  in  a  hurry.  I 
had  to  obtain  their  permission  to  leave  France;  then  the 
permission  of  the  American  Consul  in  Paris  to  leave 
France;  last,  but  most  vital  of  all,  permission  from  the 
British  military  authorities  in  France,  to  leave  France,  and 
tx)  enter  England.  The  story  of  the  tribulations  of  any  one 
attempting  to  secure  these  different  permissions  in  haste 
would  fill  a  quarto,  and  perhaps  give  the  German  himself 
some  new  ideas  for  f rightfulness. 

That  was  only  the  beginning  of  my  troubles,  for  at  the 
French  Channel  port  of  embarkation,  suspected  by  the 
British  local  authorities  established  there  of  being  some 
sort  of  an  undesirable,  perhaps  because  I  had  confessed  to 
having  come  over  for  what  my  passport  designated  as  ^lit- 
erary work,"  I  was  given  opportunity  in  the  quiet  loneli- 
ness of  a  thinking-chamber  to  speculate  on  ^^ After  Death — 
What?"  When  I  had  stewed  miserably  in  my  own  juices 
for  half  an  hour  or  so,  a  thin-faced  and  stern-looking  man 
entered,  looked  me  over,  and  began  a  questionnaire  that 
lasted  long  and  left  me  to  wonder  what  I  really  had  been 
'doing!  At  last  he  laid  down  my  papers  and  remarked 
dryly: 

"This  is  very  interesting,  sir,  but — of  course,  you  can 
prove  it  all    ..." 


THEOUGH    INFESTED    SEAS  15 

"Prove  it  T'  I  echoed  feebly.  "No,  I  don't  believe  I  can. 
Here  are  all  the  other  papers  I  have.  If  they  won't  do, 
please  communicate  with  our  Embassy  in  Paris  by  tele- 
phone.'^ 

My  questioner  looked  over  the  additional  documents, 
handed  all  my  papers  back  and  signified  that  I  was  not  to 
be  shot  this  time.  Moreover,  he  apologized  for  having 
"upset"  me  by  the  somewhat  formidable  ordeal.  As  I  was 
going  out  of  his  door,  having  a  hard  time  to  move  in  de- 
corous fashion,  he  called,  in  the  most  casual  tone  imagin- 
able: 

"Oh,  by  the  bye — you  don't  recall  going  anywhere  with 
a  Mr.  Blank,  do  you  ?  Know  anybody  by  that  name  ?" 

Fortunately  I  didn't,  for  I  rose  to  his  bait.  It  sounded 
so  plausible:  a  gentleman  inquiring  after  somebody  he 
knew.    .    .    .    War  is  full  of  inquiries  like  that. 

"Why,  no,  not  that  I  remember.  I  don't  recall  anybody 
by  that  name,  either.    Why  ?" 

"Oh,  nothing,  only — ^we'd  like  jolly  well  to  meet  Mr. 
Blank  here,"  was  the  grim  and  meaningful  answer,  as  the 
thin  gray  lips  came  together  sharply. 

Ten  minutes  later  I  was  standing  at  the  opened  port  of 
my  cabin  on  the  cross- Channel  steamer,  tearing  up  and 
throwing  overboard  what  I  assume  was  a  perfectly  innocent 
letter  given  me  by  a  French  Foreign  Office  official  to  post 
in  America  to  his  wife.  At  the  moment  the  British  official 
asked  the  routine  question :  "Have  you  any  correspondence 
with  you?"  I  had  forgotten  that  letter.    When  I  remem- 


16  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

bered,  it  was  red-hot  and  as  big  as  a  pet  corn  in  a  new  sHoe ! 
Having  once  said  I  had  nothing,  if  I  went  back  and  gave 
up  that  letter,  no  matter  how  innocent  it  might  prove,  I 
should  be  in  for  a  thoroughly  unpleasant  second  question- 
naire and  a  search  so  thorough  that  it  would  uncover  even 
my  dreams.  But  I  need  not  violate  the  law ;  I  tore  up  the 
missive  and  dropped  it  into  the  sighing  waters  alongside. 

Our  little  procession  that  night  consisted  of  two  hospital 
ships  full  of  wounded  going  to  Blighty,  our  own  ship,  and 
the  usual  convoy  of  destroyers.  The  weather  was  good  for 
submarining,  rainy,  blowing  half  a  gale,  and  black  as  a 
pocket.  The  enemy  could  creep  up  and  wait  in  our  path 
unobserved.  But  we  had  little  anxiety,  so  thorough  has 
been  the  scouring  the  British  destroyers  and  trawlers  have 
given  the  Channel  lanes,  and  so  constant  is  the  watch  kept 
upon  them  by  sleepless  eyes. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  inshore  waters  off  the  English 
west  coast,  from  which,  half  hidden  in  the  drizzle  of  a  chill- 
ing fall  rain,  on  a  nameless  American  liner,  we  put  out  into 
the  river,  lay  at  anchor  a  whole  day  speculating  and  finally 
slipped  off  at  daylight  when  the  coast  was  reported  all 
clear.  What  a  day  that  one  of  swinging  at  anchor  was! 
Submarines  outside — a  new  liner  not  yet  on  her  maiden 
voyage  but  merely  coming  from  the  yards,  torpedoed  and 
destroyed — an  American  destroyer  sunk — ^two  big  passen- 
ger liners  sent  to  the  bottom,  one  visible  from  our  ship 
when  we  passed  its  location.  Rumor  was  busy  indeed.  But 
we  were  on  the  home  stretch,  we  had  all  of  us  seen  mucK 


THROUGH   INFESTED    SEAS  17 

and  learned  more ;  we  were  on  an  American  ship  with  a  vet- 
eran crew.  Every  man  of  that  crew  had  been  through  at 
least  one  previous  torpedoing,  blow-up  or  wreck  of  some 
sort — reassuring,  that !  It  was  more  reassuring  to  know  our 
own  destroyers  were  scurrying  to  and  fro  outside,  combing 
the  waters  for  our  safety. 

An  American  ship,  and  American  guns — and  such  guns ! 
Here  was  not  one  graceful  and  delicate,  hard-hitting  but 
diminutive  Erench  Seventy-five,  but  four  powerful  six- 
inchers,  one  on  each  bow  and  stern,  so  delicately  balanced 
they  swung  to  a  touch,  and  manned  by  gunners  who  might 
be  green  at  war  but  who  nevertheless  actually  stood  on  the 
mountings  with  hands  ready  to  training  gear  and  breech- 
block, and  eyes  that  never  ceased  for  a  moment  to  sweep  the 
wild  tumble  of  waters.  Day  and  night  those  gun  crews 
stood  by,  not  in  a  vague  notion  of  being  on  hand  if  any- 
thing turned  up,  but  hunting  for  trouble  as  a  cat  hunts  in 
a  stubble-field  for  mice.  England  may  gibe  gently  at  the 
grim  and  businesslike  air  of  our  boys  as  indicating  their 
rawness  to  the  game  of  games,  but  the  hope  of  every  one 
who  has  seen  them  at  work  is  that  they  may  never  lose  one 
jot  of  alert  and  eager  readiness. 

The  ship  herself  was  not  painted  a  uniform  war  gray, 
but  with  a  bluish-gray  as  a  background,  she  was  literally  cov- 
ered, hull,  superstructure,  funnels,  spars,  boats,  everything 
with  bilious  green  and  red-lead  squares,  set  diamondwise 
— camouflage  at  sea.  When  coming  aboard  a  young  aero- 
plane  engine   expert,   with  the   rank   of  a  Lieutenant- 


18  iWITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

Commander  of  the  "Royal  Naval  Eeserve,  shivered  at  this 
hideous  pleasantry,  and  all  the  way  across  missed  meals  and 
kept  away  from  the  bluest  part  of  the  smoking-room. 

We  were  convoyed  by  a  lumbering  old  merchantman  con- 
verted into  an  armed  cruiser,  and  by  two  swift  American 
destroyers  which  tumbled  about  in  the  rough  sea  until  they 
seemed  so  many  frisking  dolphins  rather  than  armed  ves- 
sels. They  rolled  until  we  could  see  their  keels ;  their  fun- 
nels seemed  to  lie  flat  along  the  smother.  They  dove  half 
out  of  sight  into  solid  masses  of  grayish  green,  to  be  thrown 
quivering  back  on  their  haunches  next  minute,  out  of  the 
water  as  far  aft  as  the  bridge,  trjdng  to  roll  over  and  go 
down  stern  foremost  at  the  same  time,  corkscrew  fashion. 
Our  good  ship  Camouflage  tumbled  about  in  lively  fashion, 
too,  and  our  lumbering  cruiser  companion  showed  her  red 
bilges  with  pendulum-like  regularity. 

Aside  from  the  rough  weather  at  first,  it  was  a  very  dif- 
ferent voyage  from  the  journey  over — no  excitement,  no 
tension,  except  one  morning  when  one  of  the  gunners  whis- 
pered to  the  Navy  Lieutenant  who  was  watching  our  game 
of  shuffleboard. 

"Huh?  Bight!  Standby!  Til  get  my  glasses !"  he  re- 
plied, and  Vanished. 

Every  one  who  heard  hurried  forward  to  a  vantage  point 
behind  the  big  six-incher,  whose  crew  was  already  keeping 
it  trai/ied  on  a  faint  black  smudge  on  the  horizon.  With 
every  roll  and  heave  of  the  steamer  the  muzzle  of  that  gray 
monster  followed  the  distant  target  unerringly,  the  men  at 


THROUGH   INFESTED   SEAS  19 

their  stations,  the  doors  of  the  shell-room  open,  everything 
in  readiness  for  the  command — that  did  not  come.  The 
smudge  became  one  ship,  two  ships,  a  whole  fleet — a  convoy 
of  troopships  and  supply  and  munitions  vessels,  led  by  a 
protected  cruiser.  A  brief  command  barked  from  above  re- 
leased the  eager  men  and  left  the  gun  to  swing  only  with 
the  drunken  roll  of  the  vessel,  but  the  thought  voiced  by  a 
gray-haired  skipper  of  the  R.  N.  R.  was  in  every  mind  as 
we  watched : 

'•^Smart  lads,  those !  I'll  wager  they  had  the  range  first !" 

Nothing  more  of  any  interest  happened  except  the 
Sunday  morning  service  in  the  saloon,  when  a  steward 
whose  hearing  was  not  quite  the  equal  of  his  musical  educa- 
tion played  the  hymns,  and  our  good  Bishop,  he  with  whom 
I  crossed  on  the  French  vessel,  addressed  us  informally 
but  with  an  impressiveness  that  found  every  one. 

And  then — home,  safety,  families,  everything  in  the  dusk 
of  early  dawn,  with  the  chilly  waiting  at  the  protective  net, 
at  Quarantine,  the  slow  progression  up  the  harbor,  and  a 
British  officer  who  had  never  been  in  America  before,  ask- 
ing plaintively : 

"I  say,  old  chap,  does  your  Statue  of  Liberty  thing  really 
show  so  we  can  see  it  from  the  ship  ?" 


CHAPTER   II 

BEHIND  THE  FEONT 

"Say,  New  Yo'k,  did  France  usetuh  look  like  this  befoah 
the  wah?^'  asked  the  soft  voice  of  a  Georgian  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
man  as  we  leaned  over  the  rail  watching  the  exquisite  pano- 
rama flow  past.  "Some  country/'  went  on  the  voice,  mus- 
ingly, without  awaiting  any  reply,  "if  it's  all  as  suah- 
'nough  good  as  this  end.  Don't  wondeh  the  Fritzes  wanted 
to  hog  it  for  'emselves — an'  the  French  to  hang  on  to  it !" 

It  is  all  as  good  as  the  southern  "end."  Never  had 
France  appeared  lovelier  than  on  that  August  afternoon 
when  the  steamer  wound  her  way  slowly  up  the  placid  river, 
through  fields  untroubled  and  mellow  in  their  summer 
maturity;  beside  sleepy  little  medieval  villages  plumed 
with  the  slowly  rising  blue  smoke  from  a  chimney;  past 
stretches  where  the  rustling  mimosas  and  rushes  made  a 
rich  green  arras  flung  over  the  banks.  So  far  as  the  un- 
aided eye  could  see,  here  was  no  smitten  land,  bleeding  in- 
ternally, sorely  pressed  by  a  voracious  and  conscienceless 
enemy.  Under  the  soft  and  hazy  sky  sturdy  figures  moved 
about  the  broad  acres,  horses  drowsed  in  the  shade  or 
plodded  patiently  along  chalky  white  roads,  bordered  by 
willows  and  poplars  glistening  opal  and  malachite  in  the 
thick  sunshine.  Children  played  happily  about  their  doors, 

30 


BEHIND   THE   FRONT  %1 

and  the  riverside  markets  in  the  little  towns  threw  us 
strong  gleams  of  color — ^many-faceted  gems  that  refracted 
the  light  with  prismatic  richness. 

What  the  eye  did  not  see  at  our  distance  was  that  the 
sturdy  figures  in  the  fields  were  those  of  broad-backed 
young  women  or  stooping  ancients;  that  the  horses  were 
ancient,  too,  and  some  of  them  scarred ;  that  the  children's 
happiness  was  a  silent  happiness,  if,  indeed,  it  could  be 
given  that  old,  joyous  name  at  all ;  that  the  vegetable  mar- 
kets were  brilliant  with  color  because  there  was  no  crowd- 
ing throng  to  hide  the  gay  hues  of  the  carrots  and  beets,  the 
silver  green  of  lettuce  and  cabbage.  For  young  France, 
aye  and  middle-aged  France,  too,  still  lies  out  under  the 
star-shells  of  that  mysterious  region,  the  Front,  plowing 
with  something  that  cuts  deeper  and  more  fiercely  than  a 
plowshare,  and  reaping  with  something  that  harvests  more 
than  sun-tanned  wheat. 

Notwithstanding  her  losses,  France  is  neither  defeated, 
depressed  nor  in  the  last  ditch.  Mourning  she  wears,  but 
she  wears  it  with  the  pride  of  high  privilege,  not  the  de- 
spair of  utter  loss,  with  the  surquidant  air  of  one  who  has 
been  decorated.  To  one  who  had  hardly  dared  think  about 
a  France  garbed  in  black,  her  spirit  was  a  revelation,  and 
the  mourning  itself  not  nearly  so  depressing  as  imagined. 
Weary  France  is  of  the  war,  weary  to  the  point  of  utter 
revulsion;  but  disgust  does  not  mean  disinclination  to 
fight,  and  France  will  go  on,  if  my  knowledge  of  her,  ex- 
tending over  many  years,  is  at  all  reliable,  until  the  Hun  is 


22  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

beaten  decisively  or  there  are  no  more  Frenchmen  left  to 
fight  him.  The  spirit  and  power  that  enabled  France  to 
retreat  and  retreat  until  the  vantage  ground  of  the  Marne 
was  reached,  without  losing  morale;  the  spirit  that  fired 
the  Army  and  urged  it  to  victory  in  the  terribly  bloody 
field  of  the  Somme;  the  spirit  that  made  good  Verdun's 
heroic  cry  of  On  ne  passe  pas;  the  spirit  that  is  now,  in 
1918,  keeping  many  a  soldier  in  uniform  notwithstanding 
a  missing  arm  or  leg  or  eye,  is  not  the  spirit  that  yields. 
Determination  without  hope  often  saves  the  day;  but  in 
this  case  the  feeling  of  France,  of  all  the  Allies,  is  one  of 
something  more  than  hope :  it  is  certainty. 

They  look  to  America.  They  are  certain  now  that  the 
forces  of  decency  and  right  will  win,  because  we  have 
thrown  our  vast  resources  of  man  power  and  materiel  into 
the  scale  in  such  a  way  that  all  Europe  knows  we  really  in- 
tend to  do  our  part  and  see  the  fight  through.  Before  we 
began  to  show  actual  results,  the  world  was  inclined  to 
take  the  German  view  of  our  declaration  of  war — mere 
cam  ouflage,  to  hide  commercial  intentions.  To-day  the  peas- 
ant in  the  field  will  shake  his  grizzled  head  and  pull  deep 
on  his  cigarette  with  the  wise  air  of  one  who  always  said 
it — "Ah,  but  yes;  that  America!  It  is  well."  And  the 
women  look  up  from  their  sewing  or  their  babies  to  nod  and 
smile :  "That  brave  America ;  she  is  with  us,  non  f 

That  southern  city  where  we  landed  has  the  lines  of 
war  graven  deep  on  its  gray  old  face,  usually  so  smiling 
and  benevolent.   Here,  as  in  all  the  other  war  ports,  the 


BEHIND    THE    ERONT  23 

old,  placid  life  has  been  uprooted  with  a  jerk,  and  in  its 
place  is  a  stream  of  men,  gnns,  supplies ;  a  tide  of  strange- 
looking  foreigners,  horribly  in  earnest  and  with  not  an  in- 
stant to  waste  upon  conversation;  a  sense,  on  the  part  of 
the  inhabitants,  of  vagueness,  of  being  lost  in  a  maelstrom 
of  something  they  could  not  grasp  even  though  they  knew 
all  about  it,  and  consequently  a  yielding  that  seems  to  the 
thoughtful  stranger  a  little  inert. 

The  rail  journey  from  the  sea  to  Paris  is  a  constant  repe- 
tition of  the  vistas  along  the  river :  sweeping  landscapes  as 
warmly  lovely  and  as  sympathetically  tinted  as  though  the 
hectic  colors  of  war  were  on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  in- 
stead of  next  door.  It  was  impossible  to  realize,  before  see- 
ing the  battle-fields  and  trenches,  that  these  sunny  acres 
and  quiet  towns  and  contented  streams  had  been  saved 
from  the  Hun  cure-all  of  Schrechlichheit  by  the  closest  of 
margins. 

Paris!  What  untraveled  American  boy  of  all  our  vast 
expeditionary  forces,  be  he  officer  or  man,  does  not  look  for- 
ward to  seeing  the  lovely  siren  of  the  Seine?  And  with 
what  assurance  does  not  the  lucky  chap  who  has  been  on 
duty  there  talk  of  his  experience,  self-consciously  familiar 
with  the  famous  restaurants  and  hotels,  museums  and  gal- 
leries, boulevards  and  bridges  ?  To  hear  such  a  one  lectur- 
ing to  a  less  fortunate  companion,  who  listens  respectfully 
and  shoots  avid  questions  .back,  is  a  treat.  Often  the  queries 
would  be  almost  unanswerable  for  a  Parisian  born,  but  the 
Boldier  who  has  been  there  is  a  veritable  compendium  of  in- 


24:  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

formation,  and  has,  moreover,  an  imagination  typically 
American. 

Paris  is  still  Paris.  Nothing,  apparently,  can  ever  wholly 
transform  the  eternal  spirit  of  youth  that  keeps  this  mar- 
velous capital  perennially  fresh.  True,  her  lights  are 
dimmed,  her  wounds  many  and  grievous,  her  shops  are 
closed !  Only  a  few  of  the  many,  to  be  sure,  as  one  scans 
the  long  streets,  but  enough  to  give  us  the  notion  of  what  a 
war  like  this  in  the  United  States  would  mean,  with  fronts 
boarded  up  and  quaint  notices  pasted  for  the  information 
of  customers.  On  one  Parisian  milliner's  shuttered  win- 
dows is  a  neat  sign:  '^Owner  away.  Studying  German 
styles.  Will  reopen  at  the  end  of  the  war  with  a  complete 
new  line."  Will  he?  is  the  thought  that  strikes  every 
one  after  the  gay,  almost  impudent  humor  of  the  notice  has 
passed.  Another  store  bears  the  inscription:  '^Oiffice  now 
with  the  — ^th  Infantry  at  the  Front.  Customers  will 
kindly  be  patient  until  the  end  of  the  war  and  our  reopen- 
ing.- 

That  dingy  sign,  faded  with  its  three  years  of  exposure 
to  the  weather,  carries  the  motto  of  all  France:  patience. 
Every  one  in  France  is  patient,  even  in  the  jammed 
''^Metro"  on  a  wet  night  when  the  shops  have  closed  and 
feminine  Paris  is  set  free.  The  New  York  Subway  itself 
is  no  more  crowded  or  busy.  There  is  this  difference :  how- 
ever jammed  together  the  Parisian  crowd  may  be,  nobody's 
clothes  are  torn  off,  and  nobody  yells  '^Watcliyerstepwatch' 
yerstep!    Plenty oroomupfronttherer  or  puts  a  knee  in 


BEHIND    THE    FRONT  25 

some  one's  back  to  squeeze  the  helpless  inside  that  men- 
acing guillotine-like  door  with  the  mighty  spring.   Every- 
body is  good-natured  to  the  soldier,  too,  even  vrhen,  mud- 
died with  the  clay  of  the  trenches  and  bulging  in  fifty 
places  with  equipment  and  the  most  unimaginable  sorts  of 
packages,  often  with  a  wine-bottle  sticking  its  red  neck  out 
of  a  pocket  at  a  bayonet  angle,  he  inserts  himself  heavily 
into  an  already  full  car.     A  dainty  skirt  may  be  pulled 
aside  a  little,  or  a  fragile  hat  tilted  away  from  the  heavily- 
burdened  soldier,  but  there  is  no  protest,  even  in  the  heart. 
And  the  soldier  to-day  in  Paris  is  legion.    Not  a  house 
but  has  its  poilu.    Sooner  or  later  they  all  come  home  to 
spend  their  permission^,  and  we  see  them  everywhere.   Some 
of  them  come  on  their  backs,  alas,  to  be  swallowed  up  in 
the  vast,  quiet  hospitals,  whence  they  generally  emerge  a 
little  whiter,  a  little  quieter  than  when  they  entered.  Then 
the  Champs  Elysees  and  the  Tuileries  Gardens,  the  Grands 
Boulevards  and  the  little  squares  and  parks  about  the  Inva- 
lides,  see  them  sunning  themselves  or  resting  upon  the 
benches.    A  sad  spectacle?   No!   The  mutiUs  are  not  sad 
themselves,  and  they  would  properly  resent  our  being  sad- 
dened by  their  appearance ;  but  they  accept  attention  gra- 
ciously.    The  crossing  police  are  very  gentle  and  tender 
with  them,  and  the  flying  street  traffic  stops  to  let  them 
pass — ^the  only  living  beings,  perhaps,  who  ever  halted  the 
turbulent  flow  of  the  Paris  streets !   In  the  vast  courtyard 
of  Napoleon's  ancient  Hopital  des  Invalides,  where  the 
myriad  trophies  wrested  from  the  hocTie  have  been  gathered. 


26  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

unmarked  convalescents  and  limping  mutiles  solemnly  in- 
spect the  guns,  the  aeroplanes,  the  shells  and  other  devices 
of  modern  warfare,  sometimes  explaining  them  with  care- 
ful simplicity  to  admiring  civilians. 

Paris  unchanged,  did  I  say?  [N'ot  altogether:  she  has 
become  quieter  in  some  ways,  noisier  in  others.  Her  old 
brilliant  colors  have  toned  down — ^the  women  dress  soberly, 
though  without  having  lost  their  chic.  By  day  the  city's 
appearance  conveys  little  out  of  the  ordinary — except  that 
the  French,  who  in  other  days  used  to  make  us  leap  for 
bur  lives  in  crossing  the  streets,  and  arrested  us  for  inter- 
fering with  the  traffic  if  we  were  run  down,  now  themselves 
leap  quite  as  frantically  when  they  hear  the  imperious 
klaxon  of  an  automobile  driven  by  a  soldier-chauffeur  in 
the  American  khaki !  The  streets  are  tawny  with  khaki, 
kaleidoscopically  tumbling  with  the  tall,  sturdy  figures  of 
the  striding  British  and  their  Colonials,  springy  Amer- 
icans, swaying  Highlanders  in  tartan  and  sporran,  huge, 
fawn-uniformed  Russians,  gray  Italians  with  starred  col- 
lars and  soldierly  carriage,  stocky  little  Portuguese  and 
lean,  melancholy  Serbs.  Decorations  and  orders  blaze  on 
every  breast.  The  French  aviators,  in  their  horizon  Iplue 
fatigue  uniforms  or  the  black  and  scarlet  of  other  days, 
are  the  most  modest  and  reserved  of  all,  with  probing  eyes 
that  look  through  the  streets  and  their  denizens  into  those 
far,  aerial,  boundless  spaces  where  Bergsonian  time  is  the 
measure  of  life.  Slender  boys  they  are,  generally,  with 
sensitive  faces  and  fingers,  yet  gifted  as  no  others  are  with 


BEHIND    THE    EEONT  27 

the  storied  impassivity  of  the  gambler,  yielding  to  no  shock 
and  impervious  to  everything  but  the  praise  they  shun.  On 
their  narrow  chests,  not  yet  the  rounded  shapes  of  full- 
grown  men,  burn  the  medals  which  tell  of  those  frightful, 
whirling,  upside-down  and  inside-out  combats  where  death 
plays  hide-and-seek  with  men  through  dank  clouds  of 
vapor:  the  dull  green  and  bronze  of  the  Croix  de  Guerre, 
the  scarlet  of  the  Legion  d'Honneur,  the  green  and  gold  of 
the  Medaille  Militaire.  The  people  know  these  silent  fig- 
ures, and  worship  them.  Artillery,  infantry,  tankmen,  the 
"Mopping-up"  daredevils,  all  these  have  their  meed  of 
gratitude  and  praise;  but  the  flying  man  whose  seat  is 
between  the  wings  of  death  itself,  whose  voice  is  the  whip- 
lash staccato  of  the  machine-gun — ^he  is  the  idol. 

For  days  after  Captain  Guynemer,  the  ^^Ace  of  Aces"  (the 
French  system  of  rating  in  the  air  service  counts  a  man  an 
Ace  when  he  has  been  officially  recognized  as  the  proved 
destroyer  of  five  enem^y  planes),  had  been  shot  down  in 
Belgium,  those  of  us  who  knew  of  his  fate  dared  not 
breathe  it.  "We  watched  with  interest  the  anxiety  of  the 
crowds  to  know  why  he,  whose  Croix  de  Guerre  ribbon  had 
had  to  be  lengthened  again  and  again  to  accommodate  the 
fifty  palms  and  stars  which  bespoke  his  victories,  was  no 
longer  mentioned.  We  saw  that  copy  of  Excelsior,  with  a 
short  poem-requiem  dedicated  to  an  unnamed  hero  of  the 
air ;  we  felt  the  restlessness  of  spirit  it  evoked.  Men  stood 
on  the  street  corners  to  read  it,  and  shake  their  heads  as 
they   asked   themselves   anxiously:    "Est-ce   not'    Gwyne- 


28  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

merf"  When  the  sorrowful  news  was  published  officially, 
all  Paris,  yes,  all  France,  mourned  for  the  gallant  and  in- 
extinguishable spirit  upon  whose  shattered  machine  the 
German  aviator  who  had  brought  him  down  is  said  to  have 
dropped  a  commemorative  wreath. 

The  reserve  and  modesty  which  so  endear  the  flyers  to 
the  people  was  characteristically  shown  by  Guynemer.  Re- 
plying to  his  father's  demand  for  his  first  impressions  on 
arriving  at  the  front,  he  wrote  his  thought  back  in  tele- 
graphic style :  "ISTo  impressions ;  curiosity  satisfied/' 

Shopping  is  still  a  matter  of  some  difficulty  and  perplex- 
ity for  the  alien.  Never  having  ourselves  experienced  the 
nightmare  through  which  France  has  been  compelled  to 
pass,  it  is  hard  for  Americans  to  understand  certain  rules 
regarding  the  purchase  of  ordinary  necessities,  and  amus- 
ing— provided  one  is  philosopher  enough  to  have  cultivated 
a  decent  sense  of  humor — to  be  entangled  in  the  personal 
interpretations  of  the  different  shopkeepers. 

On  arriving  in  Paris  without  camera  or  typewriter,  which 
the  French  officials  in  New  York  warned  me  might  occa- 
sion me  a  deal  of  trouble,  my  first  inquiries  elicited  the 
fact  that  I  might  have  both.  A  kodak  was  speedily  acquired, 
but  films  were  another  matter.  The  Government  regula- 
tions restrict  imports  practically  to  supplies  contributing 
directly  to  the  life  of  both  military  and  civil  population. 
The  Kodak  Company,  having  a  stock  of  films  sufficient  for 
about  ten  months  only,  and  being  unable  to  obtain  any 
more  in  the  immediate  future,  refused  to  sell  any  one  more 


An  observation  balloon 


Group  of  aviators  with  the  late  Lieutenant  Guynemer,  the 
famous  French  Ace,  in  the  center 


BEHIND    THE    F^ROl^T  29 

than  a  certain  limited  quantity  during  any  given  week. 
As  for  a  typewriter,  there  were  plenty  of  the  ponderous 
desk  machines  to  be  had;  but  the  little  portable  ma- 
chines— !  After  some  hunting,  the  store  where  they  were 
sold  was  located,  and  a  machine  reposing  in  the  window 
proved  that  there  was  at  least  one  unsold.  I  might  as  well 
have  offered  money  for  salvation ! 

"But  no,  Monsieur,^^  cried  the  chic  little  woman  in 
mourning  who  tended  the  shop  in  her  husband's  perpetual 
absence.  '^I  have  only  this  one.  I  can  not  sell  it.  I  will 
take  your  order.  ...  I  should  have  some  machines  in 
— ^well,  perhaps  next  spring.'' 

"Sorry,  Madame,  but  that  won't  do.  Can't  you  rent  it 
tome?" 

She  shook  her  head  in  surprise.  "Eent  ?  No,  indeed !  I 
must  have  it  in  the  window  so  I  can  sell  others — if  the 
Government  ever  lets  me  import  any  more." 

Premiums,  arguments,  cajoleries  had  no  effect.  That 
machine  must  remain  in  the  window,  earning  nothing  and 
slowly  deteriorating,  as  an  advertisement  for  typewriters 
she  will  not  have  for  many  long  months  to  come. 

In  a  haberdashery  on  one  of  the  Grands  Boulevards  an 
English  clerk  sold  me  some  Scotch  lisle  at  an  outrageous 
price,  with  the  naive  explanation:  "Oh,  I  know  it's  'igh, 
sir,  but  you  see,  sir,  the  French  Gov'm't  won't  let  us  im- 
port hscny  more,  so  we  'ave  to  put  the  price  up  so  'igh  we 
can  keep  it  all  for  customers  as  wants  Aonly  the  best !" 

Subsequent  experience  seemed  tQ  indicate  that  he  had 


30  WITH   THREE   AEMIES 

voiced  the  opinion  and  attitude  of  all  shopkeepers.  Many 
hotel-keepers  follow  the  same  pleasant  scheme,  and  are 
pained  when  one  demands  the  ordinary  comforts  of  other 
days :  oatmeal,  for  instance.  My  hotel  had  none  and  would 
buy  none.  None  was  to  be  had  in  Paris — there  was  no  de- 
mand for  it — ^in  war  one  does  not  eat  oatmeal!  But  the 
war  bread  lay  soggily  upon  my  pampered  stomach,  so  I 
tramped  a  mile  to  a  German  delicatessen  (it  has  changed 
proprietors  and  nationality,  it  is  said,  but  not  its  name), 
paid  fifty  cents  for  five  cents'  worth,  and  gave  it  to  my 
Greek  floor-waiter.  "Ah,  yes.  Monsieur  got  it,  didn't  he? 
I  knew  he  could !"  exclaimed  the  unblushing  rascal.  How 
that  oatmeal  vanished!  I  must  have  had  the  appetite  of  a 
whole  battalion. 

With  a  considerable  part  of  the  foreign  population  and 
a  certain  element  of  the  French  themselves,  there  is  no 
lack  of  money,  nor  of  the  inclination  to  spend.  The  fa- 
mous restaurants,  such  as  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  Prunier's, 
Ambassadeurs,  Grand  Vatel  and  others;  tearooms  like 
Rumpelmayer's ;  expensive  establishments  of  every  sort,  in 
fact,  are  lavishly  patronized.  Most  of  the  money;  I  should 
say,  goes  for  food  and  drink.  It  may  be  the  only  solace  of 
a  warring  people:  certainly  the  world  does  look  brighter 
after  a  plenteous  and  soothing  dinner,  with  immaculate 
settings  and  perfect,  silent  service.  Nevertheless,  to  the 
thoughtful  American,  knowing  the  appeals  made  from 
France  for  help,  knowing  the  millions  that  have  been  sent 
over  from  our  full  purses  to  help  the  stricken  and  tHe 


BEHIND   THE    FEOISTT  31 

Homeless,  the  flaunting  prosperity  of  sueli  establishments, 
with  women  in  diamonds  and  costly  furs,  and  men  in  eve- 
ning dress,  all  waiting  in  line  for  a  chance  at  a  table,  is  a 
discordant  note  worthy  of  America  itself.  I  remarked 
upon  it  to  a  French  friend,  when  we  were  dining  one  eve- 
ning in  one  of  those  very  places. 

Characteristically  he  shrugged,  and  considered  lovingly 
the  sole  before  him  in  its  rich  golden  sauce. 

"Eh,  hien,  my  friend.  The  rich!  They  spend.  Sapristi! 
How  should  the  world  know  they  are  rich  if  they  do  not 
spend?  America  sends  nothing  for  them.  They  are  not 
like  us;  they  live  in  a  different  world  from  us  human  be- 
ings.   We  have  hearts,  they  have  stomachs !'' 

It  is  when  Paris  wraps  her  veil  about  her  raven  head  for 
the  journey  through  the  twelve  realms  of  the  night  that 
she  is  most  impressive. 

The  gray  dusk  falls  almost  palpably  upon  the  thronged 
Grands  Boulevards  and  in  the  swirling  human  eddies  about 
the  "Metro'^  kiosks,  which  proclaim  themselves  in  letters 
of  vivid  green.  It  trickles  steadily  down  from  somber 
eaves  and  awnings,  to  coagulate  under  the  trees  and  about 
the  newsstands  like  a  heavy  gas  through  which  men  and 
women  walk  only  half  discerned.  Shops  put  up  their  cur- 
tains or  pull  down  their  iron  shutters  with  a  clang.  Lights 
begin  to  glow  feebly  out,  not  yet  illuminating,  but  merely 
intensifying  the  dark  behind  and  about  them.  Over- 
head, the  hooded  street  lights  are  turned  on,  cutting  pyra- 
mids of  feeble  radiance  through  the  solid  black  of  the 


32  WITH    THEEE   AEMIES 

night.  The  whole  city  hums  with  going-home  and  closing- 
np  activities.  It  is  not,  however,  the  high,  stridulous  note 
of  other  days,  but  a  concentrated  buzz,  a  monotone  that 
breathes  the  soul  of  the  city  and  its  untiring  endeavor. 

An  hour  later  the  quiet  of  a  country  town  reigns,  save 
for  the  blatant  honk  of  the  decrepit  old  taxis — ^little  one- 
and  two-cylinder  afiairs  relegated  ages  ago  to  the  scrap 
heap,  and  resurrected  only  when  all  the  efficient  motors 
were  demanded  for  war  service — as  they  pant  and  stutter 
their  tin-panny  way  past  corners  unlighted  and  dangerous. 
And  now  one  can  hear  a  different  buzz.  Thousands  of  feet 
overhead,  circling  like  eagles  above  their  nest,  mighty  pro- 
tecting aeroplanes  wing  purringly,  and  the  pedestrians 
look  up  thoughtfully,  to  make  certain  of  the  red  eye  which 
glows  reassuringly  down  upon  the  slumbrous  city  below; 
the  sign  visible  of  safety  for  the  helpless  millions  spread 
along  both  sides  of  the  silver  Seine. 

Out  by  the  ancient  city  fortifications  there  are  guards 
by  day  also :  fat,  pursy  observation  balloons  floating  at  in- 
tervals along  the  northern  front,  watching  ceaselessly  for 
the  terror  that  no  longer  flies  either  by  night  or  by  day* 
against  the  uncaptured  city,  while  in  the  vast  dry  moats 
the  peasant  women  tend  their  vegetable  gardens,  and  sol- 
diers en  permission  snore  peacefully  in  the  sunshine  oi 
ramble  about  the  grassy  glacis. 

In  towns  where  there  is  any  possibility  of  danger,  or 


*  This  was  written  before  the  renewal  of  air  raids,  which 
commenced  the  night  of  January  30,  1918,  after  the  laps©  of 
six  months. 


BEHIND    THE    FRONT  33 

where  there  are  military  depots  or  stations  of  importance, 
the  darkness  at  night  is  appalling.  The  people  feel  their 
way  stnmblingly,  bump  into  one  another,  trip  on  unex- 
pected irregularities  of  the  sidewalks;  horse  cabs  and  an 
occasional  military  automobile  creep  through  the  uncertain 
walkers  in  thoroughfares  whose  every  window  and  door  is 
curtained  with  black  or  shuttered  tight.  Only  in  the  resi- 
dential quarters  is  the  blackness  relieved  by  little  proces- 
sions of  winking  stars — the  pocket  torches  the  householders 
use  only  to  discover  their  own  doors.  The  silence  is  really 
worse  than  the  dark.  A  footstep  is  audible  a  block,  a  cry 
four  or  five  blocks,  the  rumble  of  a  heavy  vehicle  through- 
out a  whole  quarter.  Any  sudden  or  unusual  noise  electri- 
fies the  town.  It  is  the  same  story  ^cross-Channel.  The 
crawling  mass  that  is  the  British  capital  writhes  in  and  out 
upon  itself,  colliding,  apologizing,  slipping  away  in  the 
dark  without  recognition.  Eestaurants  and  hotels  are  rec- 
ognizable only  by  their  bulk  or  architectural  peculiarities. 
This  darkness  is  harvest  time  for  the  unfortunate  women 
of  the  half -world.  By  the  thousand  they  infest  every  great 
avenue  of  all  the  large  cities,  French  and  English,  lurk  in 
every  byway,  invade  every  hotel  and  restaurant,  and  at- 
tempt even  to  penetrate  the  sacredness  of  the  Eed  Cross 
and  semi-religious  huts  and  canteens  which  minister  to  the 
fighting  man.  They  are  not  the  mere  flotsam  of  unmoral- 
ity  to  be  found  in  time  of  peace.  They  are  the  wrecks,  thou- 
sands of  them,  that  Germany's  degenerate  policies  of  war 
have  cast  up  on  the  Allies'  shores.  Some  of  them,  no  doubt^ 


34  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

made  war  their  excuse  for  what  they  would  not  have  dared 
in  peace  time.  But  to  many  tragedy  piled  upon  tragedy 
until,  their  normally  scant  store  of  morals  gone,  they 
chose  "the  easiest  way/^  "The  easiest  way!'^  To  see  their 
wolfish  faces,  which  no  artistry  with  rabbit's  foot  and 
rouge  stick  can  disguise,  and  their  hungry,  pleading  eyes, 
Belgian,  Polish,  Galician,  French,  Russian,  Serbian,  Eng- 
lish, Irish,  yes,  and  American  even,  is  to  look  into  the  pit 
of  that  hell  the  Hun  has  loosed  throughout  the  world,  and 
whose  victims  are  not  yet  numbered.  They  are  hungry, 
these  poor  creatures.  So  are  the  lonely  babies  many  of 
them  leave  at  home  when  they  start  to  prowl  the  lightless 
streets — ^babies  some  of  them  the  offspring  of  rape,  some 
of  a  too-yielding  love,  some  of  careless  girlish  passion  or 
recklessness.  And  one  mere  child  I  saw,  one  night  in  Pic- 
cadilly Circus,  far  gone  in  pregnancy,  with  an  expression 
upon  her  haggard,  painted  face  a  Dante  only  could  have 
put  in  words  to  wring  the  soul. 

Never,  so  long  as  I  live,  shall  I  be  able  to  see  the  full 
moon  again  without  thinking :  "They'll  be  over  to-night !" 
For  over  them  all,  Paris  and  London,  seaport  and  inland 
city,  hangs  the  sinister  threat  of  the  air  raid  whenever  the 
night  is  bright.  I  have  sat  quietly  through  such  a  raid  in 
a  restaurant  in  the  very  railroad  station  the  flying  hoclies 
were  trying  to  hit — the  waitresses  kept  smiling ;  the  cashier 
never  looked  up  from  her  accounts — and  heard  the  frightful 
explosions  of  those  two-hundred-and-twenty-pound  bombs 


BEHIND    THE    FRONT  35 

of  high  explosive,  the  raving  of  the  anti-aircraft  guns,  and 
the  snappy  crack  of  bursting  shrapnel.  I  have  heard  the 
piercing  alerte  of  the  great  siren  upon  a  town  fortress  warn 
the  population  of  the  approach  of  the  enemy,  and  the  bugle 
call  that  announced  the  danger  over.  I  have  looked  down 
into  the  demolished  tangle  of  timbers  and  masonry  that  a 
few  hours  before  was  a  house  where  nineteen  men,  women  and 
children  had  taken  refuge,  and  seen  the  debris  lifted  cau- 
tiously away  in  the  hope  that  though  the  groaning  had  died 
out  into  a  sickening  silence,  there  might  be  a  little  life  yet 
left  to  save.  And  I  have  talked  with  those  heroic  English 
women  whose  ambulances  responded  to  that  call  while  the 
bombs  were  still  falling;  women  who  could  tell  me  without 
thought  of  anything  but  service,  of  standing  by  the  work- 
ers, or  penetrating  the  ruin  itself  regardless  of  their  own 
danger,  to  alleviate  the  agony  whose  cries  dropped  away  one 
after  the  other  as  the  hours  passed  until  finally  there  was 
no  sound  save  the  scraping  of  the  beams  and  stones  being 
lifted  from  their  bodies. 

Erightfulness ?  No — Failure!  Wherever  Germany  has 
loosed  the  insane  fiendishness  of  which  she  boasts,  the  re- 
sult has  been  the  same.  Murder  has  been  done,  hideous 
cruelties  have  been  perpetrated,  and  whether  the  work  be 
^^in  heaven  above  or  in  the  earth  beneath  or  in  the  water 
under  the  earth,'^  its  effects  have  been  most  terrible  upon 
the  exponents  of  frightfulness  themselves,  robbing  them  of 
whatever  soul  they  had  left,  and,  now  that  the  Allies  have 


36  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

been  forced  to  reprisals,  bringing  before  them  in  letters  of 
fire :  "WitH  what  measure  ye  mete  it  shall  be  measured  to 
you  again;  pressed  down,  shaJien  together  and  running 
over. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ARMIES  ON  THE  WESTEEN"  FRONT 

How  is  any  one,  psychologist  or  materialist,  to  describe 
the  Allied  Armies  that  are  fighting  Prussian  militarism, 
and  give  the  man  who  knows  none  of  them  a  grasp  of  their 
fundamental  differences  of  racial  pride  and  feeling,  and  at 
the  same  time  make  perfectly  obvious  the  cohesiveness  of 
the  common  cause  before  which  every  difference  is  ^'sunk 
without  trace,"  every  personality  and  racial  aspiration  sub- 
ordinated ? 

We  think  and  speak  cheerfully  of  the  '^Allies"  in  the 
war.  But  why  *^^ Allies"  ?  Why  are  the  Nations  allied — ^what 
does  it  all  mean  ?  How  many  of  us  have  ever  thought  of  it 
seriously,  or  done  anything  but  smile  when  a  helpless 
miniature  republic  like  Costa  Rica  or  Monaco,  or  an  effete 
oriental  monarchy  like  Siam,  casts  in  its  lot  with  its  greater 
neighbors  ? 

There  is  a  meaning:  be  sure  of  that.  Otherwise  why 
should  a  score  of  Nations  all  around  the  earth  band  to- 
gether— white  and  black,  yellow  and  brown,  great  and 
small,  weak  and  powerful,  rich  and  poor — ^to  fight  the 
Teutonic  Powers?  Ah,  one  man  says  wisely,  the  reasons 
are  too  clear  to  require  any  great  thought.  Here  one  nation 
entered  the  war  for  sheer  self-preservation.  Here  one  is  in 

37 


38  .WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

it  for  the  most  selfish  and  sordid  of  reasons — acquisition 
of  territory;  this  one  for  indemnity;  another  for  revenge; 
Btill  another  to  curry  favor  with  the  stronger  Powers.  On 
only  one  point  is  every  one  agreed:  that  we,  the  United 
States,  are  in  the  war  for  absolutely  unselfish  and  altruistic 
purposes.  As  Americans,  we  could  enter  the  war  in  no 
other  spirit — yet,  even  we  were  under  suspicion  at  first. 

To  some  extent  the  wiseacres'  strictures  may  be  founded 
on  truth.  Human  nature  is  human  nature,  and  very  few 
motives  are  purely  disinterested — even  American  motives  I 
But  I  also  affirm  that  back  of  every  other  reason,  under- 
lying all  the  minor  motives,  there  exists  a  solid,  common 
foundation — the  innate  decency  of  the  majority  of  man- 
kind. This  basic  fact  is  so  pure  and  untainted  in  its 
springs  that  it  not  only  has  held  fast  for  three  and  a  half 
years  nations  otherwise  rivals,  but  is  adding  strength  to 
their  numbers  as  the  fight  goes  on. 

Never  before  has  there  been  an  epoch-making  war  more 
a  crusade  and  less  a  sordid  conflict ;  never  a  war,  since  the 
lays  of  the  great  migratory  struggles,  in  which  the  issue  was 
conquest  and  absorption  or  death;  never  a  war  in  which 
the  opinion  of  the  enlightened  world  was  so  solidly  united, 
so  determined  to  carry  the  fight  to  the  bitter  end  whatever 
the  cost.  All  that  is  what  has  made  Allies  of  practically 
every  Nation  which  has  subscribed  to  the  belief  in  civiliza- 
tion instead  of  barbarism,  which  has  no  wish  to  revert  to 
primitive  principles  and  the  caveman  law  of  force  alone. 

Of  all   the  Armies,  the  simplest  to  understand  is  the 


THE  ARMIES  ON  THE  WESTERN  FRONT     39 

Belgian.  Eighting  in  the  first  instance  purely  for  honor, 
then  for  the  preservation  of  life  itself — ^not  only  the  life  of 
the  Nation,  but  individual  life — driven  to  the  last  desperate 
stand  on  the  tiny  remaining  strip  of  free  Belgium,  it  has 
sustained  in  every  way  the  heroic  traditions  of  its  prede- 
cessors throughout  the  ages. 

For  a  good  deal  of  this  I  believe  King  Albert  I  is  respon- 
sible. The  man  who,  as  a  Prince,  tramped  fifteen  hundred 
miles  through  the  jungles  of  the  dark  Congo  to  see  for 
himself  whether  the  alleged  atrocities  King  Leopold  had 
winked  at  were  true,  and  who,  as  soon  as  he  reached  the 
throne  did  all  he  could  to  remedy  the  evils,  has  proved 
himself  to  be  to  the  Belgians  of  the  twentieth  century  what 
Joan  of  Arc  was  and  is  to  the  French.  Exposing  himself 
in  the  trenches,  sparing  no  fatigue  or  danger,  working  as 
few  monarchs  ever  have  had  to  work,  Albert  of  Belgium  has 
been  everywhere  and  done  everything  to  hold  his  people 
together  and  make  possible  a  continuance  of  the  Belgian 
Nation  and  ideal.  The  national  motto,  "Uunion  fait  la 
force/'  never  had  a  better  exemplification  than  in  the 
achievements  of  this  quiet,  unassuming  monarch,  who  has 
united  himself  and  his  people  and  his  Army  in  an  indis- 
soluble bond,  despite  every  difiiculty  and  hindrance.  The 
faces  of  the  men  light  up  when  his  name  is  mentioned,  and 
I  have  heard  them  attempt  to  disguise  their  depth  of  feel- 
ing for  him  with  rough  but  tenderly  meant  epithets  that 
would  translate — could  they  be  Englished  at  all — into  pro- 
fane appreciation  of  such  a  %ear  of  a  King !" 


'^0  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

Perhaps  the  King  alone  could  not  have  made  the  Belgian 
Army  what  it  is  in  the  circumstances:  the  Teuton  propa- 
ganda has  been  insidious  and  persistent;  the  racial  differ- 
ences and  interests  of  Fleming  and  Walloon  tend  to  make 
them  think  and  see  at  cross  purposes  among  themselves. 
But  ever  before  their  eyes  has  been  the  example  of  such 
heroic  spirits  as  gallant  Cardinal  Mercier — as  brave  and 
determined  a  man  as  he  is  great  a  prelate — and  that  tem- 
peramental Mayor,  fiery  little  Burgomaster  Max.  No 
doubt,  too,  the  solidity  of  character  of  the  Belgians,  that 
made  them  so  successful  in  developing  their  country,  helped 
to  hold  them  together  while  it  was  being  shot  from  under 
their  feet.  To-day  the  officers,  from  Generals  to  Sub- 
Lieutenants,  all  display  sunniness  of  soul  and  sweetness 
of  temper.  How  much  of  this  is  for  the  sake  of  impressing 
the  foreigner,  and  more  especially  to  cheer  their  men,  no 
one  can  say.  The  men,  less  intelligent  and  naturally  less 
informed,  evince  a  sturdy,  unemotional,  placid  assurance. 
I  could  interpret  them  only  in  one  way,  analyze  their  atti- 
tude only  as  saying  with  perfect  clearness:  "We  have 
fought  a  mighty  good  fight.  We  are  not  trying  to  do  the 
impossible  now,  but  we  will  hold  fast  to  what  we  have. 
And  we  know  the  future  is  safe !" 

Most  complex  of  all  is  the  British  Army,  that  weird 
medley  of  Englishman  and  East  Indian,  Afrikander  and 
Canadian,  Highlander  and  Australian,  Irishman,  Welsh- 
man and  New  Zealander,  and  the  Chinese  laborers  who 
form  a  military  auxiliary  of  tremendous  value.   Weird  as 


THE  AEMIES  ON  THE  WESTEEN  B^EONT    41 

the  conglomeration  is,  its  psychology,  taken  altogether,  is 
very  simple :  "frightfully  bored,  but  going  to  stick  it !" 

The  best  expression  of  this  dogged  attitude  is  perhaps 
the  reply  any  officer  will  make  when  asked  how  long  the 
war  will  last.  "Oh" — a  little  wearied  by  such  an  idiotic 
question — "the  first  fourteen  years  will  be  the  worst ;  after 
that,  every  other  seven." 

There  never  has  been  any  question  in  Tommy's  mind 
about  the  result,   '^'jffengland  beaten — ^by  a  'un  ?   Gam !" 

Tommy  is  not,  on  the  average,  either  a  very  quick-witted 
or  a  very  thoughtful  person.  When  an  officer  is  in  charge 
of  him,  he  takes  the  view  that  the  officer  is  responsible  for 
him,  body,  boots  and  baggage;  so  he  mislays,  drops,  loses, 
forgets  his  equipment  with  a  fine  disregard  for  the  next 
possibly  tragic  moment.  Only  when  he  is  "on  his  own"  is 
he  careful.  But  under  all  circumstances  he  is  perfectly  and 
calmly  sure  of  one  thing:  he  will  "stick  it"  if  it  takes  a 
hundred  years  to  decide  the  question  definitely. 

Beaten,  in  retreat,  badly  used  by  his  Government,  not 
fully  comprehending  why  he  was  fighting — all  this  in  the 
frightful  summer  of  1914 — he  still  stood  to  his  guns 
without  a  thought  of  giving  in.  Now,  better  equipped,  bet- 
ter fed,  better  supplied  than  any  other  Army  in  the  field 
in  1918,  he  is  bored,  horribly  bored.  Only  in  action  does 
his  boredom  cease.  Otherwise,  he  is  "fed  up"  with  the 
whole  wretched  business,  but  placidly  determined  to  go 
right  on,  no  matter  how  long  it  takes,  as  was  that  lorry 
driver  in  1914  detailed  to  take  a  motor  truck  from  Eeims 


42  :WITH   THEEB    ARMIES 

to  Amiens.  He  and  liis  mate  rnmbled  on  their  way  as  far 
as  Eouen.  "Blimey!"  exclaimed  the  driver.  "This  'ere 
eyen't  the  plice.  We've  missed  the  barmy  road."  He  made 
inquiries.  A  Frenchman  indicated  the  proper  route,  but 
suggested  that  the  two  Tommies  might  find  the  todies  at 
Amiens.  "Orl  right,  ole  top,"  responded  Tommy,  lighting 
a  fresh  "fag,"  "we'll  mike  the  run  orl  the  sime.  If  we  sees 
any  'uns,  we'll  shoot  'em." 

Tommy's  indifference  to  danger  carries  on  quite  as 
calmly  when  he  is  in  the  hottest  of  it  as  when  he  is  fifty 
miles  away.  Never  was  this  more  Britannically  displayed 
than  on  the  September  day  (1917)  when  Fritz  caught  a 
party  of  Eoyal  Fusiliers  along  the  Broenbeek  in  his  bar- 
rage. The  men  sheltered  in  a  trench  more  a  rubbish  heap 
than  a  defense,  and  the  German  guns  "laid  down"  a  deadly 
torrent  of  steel  and  high  explosive  all  about  them,  yet 
they  sang  cheerily  the  Army  version  of  In  These  Hard 

Times — 

^'You've  got  to  put  up  witU  anytlwig 
In  these  hard  times  T 

TKey  could  not  retreat,  they  could  not  advance.  Living, 
dead,  dying  huddled  together.  The  air  was  full  of  flying 
steel  and  acid  fumes  and  debris  and  bits  of  men,  while  the 
solid  earth  shook  to  the  explosions — and  the  song  roared 
on  with  a  joyous  inconsequence : 

''Oh,  if  you  live  to  he  ninety-four. 
And  carry  on  to  the  end  of  the  war. 
You  may  get  leave,  hut  not  hefore. 
In  these  hard  times!'* 


THE  ARMIES  0:^r  THE  WESTERN  FRONT    43 

The  men  in  the  support  trenches  heard  and  took  it  np ;  the 
enemy  across  the  shell-blasted  stretch  of  No  Man's  Land 
heard  it,  too,  and  must  have  marveled  at  those  "crazy 
English/'  All  the  while  the  Fusiliers,  working  with  their 
dead  and  wounded,  sang  gallantly  on,  and  the  tawdry  music- 
hall  ballad  took  on  an  epic  quality  that  spoke  the  soul  of 
England — that  great  and  modest  soul  no  German  can  ever 
comprehend. 

The  British  soldier  has  never  seemed  to  "know  the  use 
o'  fear."  But  until  1914  and  after,  he  was  insular  to  the 
last  degree.  India  did  not  change  him.  Egypt  burned  him 
with  its  sun,  but  did  not  alter  his  thought.  Political  parties 
in  England  alternated,  and  new  cabinets  muddled  about  as 
always;  yet  still  he  remained  firmly  and  incurably  British 
in  every  heart-beat — and  insular.  To-day  the  old  British 
spirit  is  still  full  and  strong,  but  the  insularity  is  largely 
gone.  The  soul  of  England  has  been  purified  and  sweet- 
ened by  the  black  draft,  its  corners  rubbed  smooth  by 
attrition  with  her  strenuous  Colonials — high-spirited  Ca- 
nadians full  of  the  tang  of  the  north  woods,  brawny 
Australians  and  New  Zealanders  with  no  room  in  their 
capable  heads  for  pettiness  of  any  sort,  stout-hearted  Afri- 
kanders who  have  scant  patience  with  red  tape  and  in- 
efficiency. One  and  all  they  were  shocked  by  England — 
shocked  her.  When  the  first  surprise  wore  away,  they  trod 
upon  the  maternal  toes  deliberately,  brutally.  They 
"spoofed"  at  everything  they  did  not  understand  or  ap- 
prove.  They  drove  their  English  officers  to  profanity  and 


44  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

gray  hair — and  at  last  all  came  into  the  fellowship  of  a 
big,  solid  family. 

The  Nation  is  awake;  awake  to  the  danger  for  civiliza- 
tion, awake  to  the  fact  that  antiquated  methods  of  thought 
as  well  as  of  action  must  vanish  if  England  is  to  remain. 
The  awakening  has  not  been  pleasant  or  easy,  but  it  has 
been  thorough  and  soul-stiffening.  The  result  has  been  a 
gradually  developing  efficiency,  national  as  well  as  indi- 
vidual ;  an  efficiency  before  which  the  machine  efficiency  of 
the  Teuton  fades  into  insignificance,  and  which  carries  a 
mighty  lesson  for  us,  who  boast  of  our  ability  to  accomplish 
wonders.  Notwithstanding  she  had  to  invent,  create  and 
operate  not  only  an  Army  but  a  System,  and  notwithstand- 
ing the  breakdowns,  delays  and  blunders  she  had  to  combat 
at  first,  England  has  for  more  than  two  years  been  able  to 
maintain  an  Army  of  millions  in  a  foreign  country,  carry- 
ing them  to  and  fro  across  a  stormy  sea  infested  by  perils, 
has  done  it  without  hitch  or  insupportable  loss,  and,  withal, 
in  a  cheery,  perfectly  matter-of-fact  way.  Every  day  and 
night  since  1914  her  ships  have  swept  across  the  Channel 
with  the  regularity  of  clockwork — ^yet  no  Englishman 
thinks  of  speaking  of  it  as  an  achievement. 

Indeed,  England's  one  surviving  insularity  still  in  full 
force  is  the  English  habit  of  such  undue  modesty  that  it  is 
rather  an  unholy  pride  in  itself !  The  Briton  will  not  talk 
of  anything  he  has  done,  because  to  do  so  would  be  "swank,'' 
or  to  "put  on  side" ;  in  Americanese,  to  blow.  But  he  tries 
go  hard  to  cover  up  his  good  deeds  they  often  stand  out  all 


THE  ARMIES  ON  THE  WESTERN  FRONT    45 

the  clearer.  In  his  heart  he  is  deeply  grateful  and  appre- 
ciative of  the  loyalty  of  his  colonies ;  but  he  waves  aside  the 
heroic  devotion  of  the  Indian  and  the  Afrikander,  and 
affects  to  regard  the  splendid  sacrifices  of  Canada  and 
Australia  and  New  Zealand  as  purely  a  matter  of  course 
and  so  not  to  be  spoken  of.  "It's  not  done,  you  know — " 

What  the  Englishman  does  not  do,  the  American  ob- 
server may.  I  can  pay  tribute  in  full  propriety  to  the 
magnificent  qualities,  and  to  the  discipline  that  has  mod- 
eled the  new  British  Army  on  lines  that  made  it  not  only 
the  smoothest  working,  most  cheerful,  efficient  and  respon- 
sive Army  of  all  those  in  the  field  in  1917,  but  also  the 
most  terrible  weapon  men  ever  forged  and  placed  in  the 
hands  of  any  Government.  It  is  at  times  amusingly — at 
others  annoyingly — sure  of  itself;  but  it  has  behind  it  the 
indestructible  cohesiveness  of  the  vast  Empire  from  which 
it  comes.  The  sun  that  never  sets  on  the  Union  Jack  also 
never  sets  on  Thomas  Atkins,  and  somehow  he  seems  to 
have  drunk  it  in,  imbibed  its  majestic  qualities  of  serenity 
and  force,  and  its  ability  to  blast  as  well  as  to  vivify  and 
hearten — even  if  he  is  bored ! 

And  what  of  the  poilu^  that  heroic  individual  whose  mili- 
tary nickname  has  justly  become  the  synonym  for  devo- 
tion, for  singleness  of  purpose,  for  thoughtful  patriotism 
which  counts  the  cost  and  recks  nothing  so  Erance  be 
served?  A  fierce  little  Zouave  named  Moinard,  found  one 
bitter,  snowy  night  alone  in  his  sector  of  trench  by  his 
Captain,  his  companions  all  dead  or  badly  wounded,  spoko 


46  .WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

for  France  wHen  he  cried  cHeerily :  "Eh,  lien,  mon  Capi- 
taine — I'm  all  alone  but  here  I  am !" 

''Here  I  am!"  At  the  Marne,  in  the  months  along  the 
bloody  Somme,  at  Verdun,  along  the  crimsoned  Chemin 
des  Dames  to-day,  the  Frenchman  stands  like  one  of  his 
own  Alps.  Those  of  us  who  had  known  France  and  her 
children  for  years  felt  before  this  war  that  we  understood 
the  French  mode  of  thought,  the  French  spirit,  as  well  as 
aliens  can  ever  understand  the  thought  and  spirit  of  an- 
other race.  How  utterly  wrong  we  all  were !  We  felt  that 
here  was  a  !N'ation  whom  super-refinement  had  tainted  with 
the  hectic  flush  of  decline.  Nobody  seemed  to  be  thor- 
oughly virile  in  the  cities ;  nobody  in  the  provinces  seemed 
to  be  gifted  with  vision  beyond  the  petty  affairs  of  the 
locality.  The  very  soldiers  looked  effeminate.  How  could 
they  stand  stiffly  in  battle  against  a  powerful  foe  ? 

Then  fire  and  blood  and  hatred  inundated  the  whole 
northern  section  of  this  loveliest  land  in  Europe.  And  what 
happened?  Ah,  the  soldiers  of  France!  What  have  they 
not  done  ?  What  have  they  not  endured ! — the  bitter  cold 
water  of  the  flooded  winter  trenches ;  the  wounds ;  the  fury 
and  horror  of  the  battle-fields;  the  slow  agonies  of  the  hos- 
pitals. .  .  .  Heroically  they  have  sacrificed  themselves 
in  a  war  without  personality,  without  any  of  the  ancient 
glories  of  warfare. 

The  full  story  of  the  poilu's  endurance  and  heroism  can 
never  be  written.  Think  of  the  two  artillery  observers  in  a 
shattered  house  who  watched  while  a  German  battery— 


THE  ARMIES  ON  THE  WESTERN  FRONT    47 

half  destroyed  by  their  reports  to  the  guns — ^took  a  new 
position  close  to  their  post,  and  telephoned  cheerily  back: 
^^They're  in  position  now.  Shoot  at  us!  Name  of  God — • 
shoot  r  Mingled  with  this  pure  and  lofty  heroism  runs  a 
crusader-like  chivalry  no  medieval  knights  ever  bettered. 
A  Corporal  and  his  squad  on  patrol  one  night  found  an- 
other French  petty  officer  hanging  by  his  feet,  horribly 
crushed  and  beaten.  In  a  rage,  the  men  swore  a  solemn 
oath  to  treat  the  first  Germans  who  fell  into  their  hands 
the  same  way.  Not  long  after,  they  caught  two  hoches — ■ 
and  because  they  were  half  starved,  the  poilus  wept  with 
rage  at  not  being  able  to  beat  them  to  death.  Instead,  they 
gave  them  their  own  last  crusts ! 

The  losses  France  has  suffered  have  been  terrible,  but 
they  have  not  sufficed  to  crush  her  spirit.  Last  summer  in 
some  quarters,  one  manifestation  of  the  vicious  German 
propaganda  it  seems  impossible  to  eradicate  anywhere  in 
the  world,  was  an  air  of  despondency,  of  wishing  the  war 
was  over,  of  being  willing  to  admit  defeat  and  make  the 
best  terms  possible.  But  with  the  arrival  of  the  first  Amer- 
icans in  France  to  back  her  up,  the  grim  resistance  of  the 
past  year  has  become  a  joyous  reaction;  confidence  reigns 
throughout  the  French  Army  as  it  has  rarely  reigned  be- 
fore, and  there  is  the  delight  of  union  with  an  Ally  of  the 
same  gay,  mercurial,  sentimental  temperament  to  savor 
every  combat,  and  lead  every  man  straining  on  to  the  day 
when  the  border  shall  be  crossed.  Even  in  the  blackest 
hours  the  Frenchman  kept  right  on  going  back  to  the  front 


48  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

— even  men  already  minus  an  arm  or  a  leg  or  an  eye.  That 
they  had  to  go  back  is  perhaps  true.  No  one  who  knows 
Erance,  however,  will  believe  for  a  moment  the  vast  major- 
ity recognized  that  as  the  thing  which  drove  them  back  into 
the  fire  and  blood. 

It  was,  it  is,  it  always  will  be  Erance !  ''France"  is  the 
magic  name  by  which  all  are  conjured,  whether  teaching  a 
school,  working  in  a  factory,  or  fighting  in  the  line. 
"France"  has  given  Government,  Army  and  people  absolute 
unity  of  purpose,  of  thought,  of  action.  The  very  Senega- 
lais  negroes,  themselves  but  a  step  removed  from  savagery, 
consider  themselves  Erenchmen !  One  of  them  grinned : 
'Tirst  war  for  me,  Congo;  second,  Morocco;  third,  hoclies. 
Three  wars  against  the  savages!'^  This  Erench  unity, 
however,  is  entirely  different  from  the  British  unity,  in 
which  all  the  different  elements  of  the  Empire,  though 
welded  by  the  common  cause,  retain  their  separate  individ- 
ualities. The  Erench,  whether  home-born  or  colonial, 
whether  nobleman  or  negro,  possess  only  one  soul,  have 
only  one  life,  recognize  only  one  love — France! 

How  shall  an  American  analyze  an  American  Army — 
tlie  American  Army — which  isn't  an  Army  yet  in  the  Con- 
tinental sense?  It  is  a  vast  agglomeration  of  Americans 
struggling  to  find  themselves,  striving  as  no  other  Amer- 
icans since  the  bitter  days  of  the  'sixties  have  had  to  strive, 
to  fit  their  Chinese  puzzle  together  into  an  Army,  to  mold 
themselves  into  a  unit,  into  a  real  weapon — to  get  them 
the  Soul  of  an  Army.     What  shall  we  have,  and  how 


THE  AEMIES  ON  THE  WESTERN  FEONT    49 

shall  we  get  it?  Shall  we  have  that  intangible  some- 
thing of  spirit  that  knits  together  our  French  neigh- 
bors in  the  line  beyond  any  power  to  unravel!  or  will 
it  be,  when  it  comes,  the  blunt,  unruffled  solidity  and 
cold  businesslikeness  of  our  British  forebears  and  pres- 
ent Allies  ?  I  believe  it  will  be  akin  to  both,  and  like  nei- 
ther. As  America  differs  from  every  other  nation  in  spirit 
and  conditions,  so  will  her  Army  differ. 

American  of  ten  generations  of  native  blood  and  for- 
eigner newly  naturalized  are  both  vivified  by  that  nervous 
agility  of  mind  as  well  as  of  body  that  is  the  dominant 
characteristic  of  the  race :  the  ability  to  think  and  act  with 
speed,  certainty  and  tremendous  striking  power.  The 
natural  gaiety  and  abandon  of  American  youth,  ardent 
lovers  of  sport  and  the  fiercest  of  competition;  the  whole- 
some love  of  danger  and  taking  chances  that  astonishes  and 
perplexes  some  of  our  soberer-minded  Allies;  the  lightness 
of  mind  that  can  instantly  throw  off  burdens  and  anxieties 
when  the  day's  work  is  done,  and  plunge  headlong  into 
recreation ;  the  deadliness  of  American  rage  when  at  last 
thoroughly  aroused,  and  the  conviction  that  we  can  set  a 
very  wrong  world  completely  right — these  things  should 
eventually  mold  into  a  truly  "formidable  American  war 
machine." 

Everybody  who  has  seen  anything  of  the  new  Army, 
either  here  or  in  France  or  England,  has  received  more  or 
less  the  same  impression.  Lord  Northcliffe,  after  visiting 
one  of  our  huge  camps  here,  called  us  "a  good-natured  but 


50  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

drastic  people/'  and  a  French  correspondent,  after  spend- 
ing a  week  in  one  of  the  French  camps  where  the  American 
soldiers  are  being  trained,  wrote  of  the  ^^terrible  determina- 
tion and  iinbelievable  ardor,  the  energetic  attitude  and 
furious,  whole-souled  execution  of  every  detail  of  training, 
surprising  even  to  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  Amer- 
ican tenacity  of  purpose/'  It  may  be  remembered  also  that 
the  London  newspapers,  after  seeing  the  first  detachments 
of  our  men  who  marched  through  their  capital,  had  a  little 
good-natured  amusement  over  the  grimness  and  tigerish 
attitude  of  even  the  youngest,  remarking  with  a  somewhat 
conscious  air  of  superior  experience  that  we  would  lose  that 
very  quickly  and  become  as  commonplace  about  the  war  as 
themselves. 

They  did  not  know  Sammy — ^begging  his  pardon  for  the 
name  he  didn't  want,  but  which  is  sticking  to  him.  The 
French  correspondent  already  quoted  caught  a  fairer  vision 
of  the  American  attitude.  He  saw  that  here  were  men  not 
yet  soldiers,  but  trying  with  all  their  hearts  and  souls  to 
develop  into  the  best  soldiers  the  world  has  ever  seen,  or, 
as  he  put  it :  "Their  habit  of  mind  is  different  from  ours. 
They  do  not  use  as  their  slogan  'On  les  aura*  (We'll  get 
them)  or  anything  of  that  sort.  .  .  .  Their  philosophy 
is :  'The  better  I  am  trained,  the  stronger  I  shall  be,  and 
the  better  able  to  preserve  my  own  life  and  win  the  vic- 
tory.' "  That  is  not  the  spirit  of  losing  grimness,  for  every 
American  soldier  feels  to  the  bottom  of  his  heart  that  he 


THE  AEMIES  ON  THE  WESTERN  FEONT     51 

has  been  called,  again  in  Monsieur  Glarner's  words,  "not 
to  participate  in  this  war,  but  to  end  it.'' 

General  Pershing,  I  think,  has  stated  all  this  with  elo- 
quent terseness  in  one  of  his  cablegrams:  "They  have 
entered  this  war  with  the  highest  devotion  to  duty,  and 
with  no  other  idea  than  to  perform  these  duties  in  the  most 
efficient  manner  possible.  They  fully  realize  their  obli- 
gation to  their  own  people,  their  friends  and  the  country." 

It  is  not  fair  to  compare  the  American  Army  as  yet  with 
the  veteran  Armies  of  France  and  England;  but,  develop- 
ing side  by  side  with  them,  will  it  eventually  fit  into  the 
same  psychological  category  in  which  they  may  be  placed? 
Never — it  is,  it  will  continue  to  be,  wholly  and  typically 
American.  All  the  stream  of  immigration  that  for  so 
many  decades  has  been  pouring  all  sorts  of  malcontents  and 
good  citizens,  anarchists  and  patriots,  inchoate  captains  of 
industry  and  worthless  tramps  into  America  has  failed  to 
wipe  out  that  clear  flame  of  national  character,  which,  how- 
ever it  may  flicker  for  the  moment  in  the  political  gales 
and  the  stress  of  misunderstood  and  new  conditions,  never 
for  one  instant  ceases  to  burn. 

The  American  Army  will  find  a  Soul,  an  Army's  Soul; 
but  it  will  also  be  an  American  Soul,  with  all  that  history 
has  shown  that  to  mean  to  mankind. 

Now  that  the  reason  for  being  allied  is  clear,  and  the 
Allied  Armies  are  neatly  classified  and  pigeonholed,  let  ua 


52  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

consider  what  the  task  before  them  is,  exactly  what  they 
must  do  to  justify  their  existence. 

Only  one  thing!  They  must  prove  to  the  German  people 
' — ^to  the  people,  not  to  the  Government  alone — that  Kultur 
is  a  failure.  Not  until  that  is  done,  and  done  right,  will 
there  be  any  safety  for  civilization,  for  Kultur  is  not  cul- 
ture such  as  we  know  and  value.  It  is  not  in  any  sense  the 
social,  mental,  spiritual  development  of  a  free  people.  Kul- 
tur is  the  ruthless  development,  at  the  expense  of  the  indi- 
vidual, of  a  heartless,  soulless  State,  filled  with  puppets 
who  move  as  their  rulers  by  "divine  right"  pull  the  strings. 
The  most  amazing  part  of  it  is  that  the  puppets  move  will- 
ingly— ^because  they  believe  in  the  system  themselves. 

There  are  only  two  ways  by  which  we  can  prove  to  them 
that  this  system,  this  Kultur,  is  a  failure,  and  a  disastrous 
failure.  The  first  way  we  are  taking  at  the  present  mo- 
ment :  sheer  brute  force.  The  Teuton  respects  force.  He 
has  had  force  used  on  him  so  long  he  understands  it.  The 
Allied  Armies  are  fighting  now  to  victory.  It  may  take 
long  to  win,  but  the  victory  is  certain.  And  by  defeating 
Germany  decisively,  we  shall  make  the  German  people  see 
that  there  is  something  in  the  world  stronger  than  their 
vaunted  Kultur,  their  militarism.  We  shall  show  them,  by 
beating  them,  that  no  single  Nation  or  ruler  can  dominate 
mankind. 

The  second  way  of  convincing  them  of  their  failure  is 
contingent  upon  the  first.  It  will  be  done  by  opening  their 
eyes,  once  the  victory  is  won,  to  what  true  freedom  and 


THE  AKMIES  ON  THE  WESTERN  ERONT    63 

honor,  liberty  and  decency  do  for  a  great  people.  We  shall 
open  their  eyes  to  the  facts  we  all  know,  to  the  facts  we  too 
seldom  think  about,  simply  because  we  know  them  so  well. 
And  ^^seeing  is  believing."  They  will  do  the  rest  them- 
selves. 


CHAPTER   IV 

LES  YANKEES  AND  THEIR  SPECIAL  PROVIDENCEo 

Up  in  a  big,  smoky,  wide-awake  New  England  town  not 
long  ago,  after  a  lecture  that  apparently  gave  the  audience 
of  business  and  professional  men  a  new  perception  of  what 
modern  warfare  means  and  is,  I  was  asked  a  question  that 
largely  reflects  the  national  curiosity. 

^^Tell  me,"  demanded  my  questioner  earnestly,  "what 
sort  of  an  Army  we  are  sending  over  to  France.  I  mean, 
what  sort  of  men  compose  it?  How  do  they  behave?  Of 
course,  I  know  what  my  own  boy  is — ^he's  all  right.  But 
how  about  the  other  fellow?  Are  most  of  the  rest  of  them 
the  same  sort?" 

The  gentleman  who  asked  that  question  is  a  college 
graduate,  a  business  man  controlling  a  great  manufacturing 
industry,  a  man  who  takes  a  vigorous  part  in  the  good 
works  and  clean  politics  movement  of  his  city.  Yet  he  had 
never  given  five  minutes'  intelligent  consideration  to  the 
"sort  of  an  Army"  we  are  sending  to  France. 

'Tiook  from  your  office  window  down  upon  the  street  any 
day  at  noon  hour,"  I  answered.  "There  is  your  American 
Army." 

What  "sort  of  an  Army,"  indeed!     Wliat  "sort  of  an 

54 


I  LES    YANKEES  55 

'Army'^  could  we  send?  Here  is  every  nation  under  the 
sun,  from  white  to  hlack,  from  gutter  blood  to  the  purple 
ichor  of  the  F.  F.  V.'s  and  the  Mayflowers,  going,  in  typi- 
cal American  spirit,  '^to  take  a  chance,^^  but  going  intelli- 
gently. The  Georgia  negro  who  said  he  was  "willin'  tuh 
go  tuh  fight  dat-ar  ole  Kaisuh  tuh  mek  ^im  set  free  de 
slaves  in  Belgum"  knew  quite  as  well  the  American  spirit 
he  represented  as  the  Harvard  graduate  who  talked  learn- 
edly of  the  inevitable  evolution  of  democratic  institutions, 
etc.  Each  and  all,  whether  they  have  reasoned  it  out  or  not, 
sense  the  wrong  and  go,  certain  of  victory  and  ready  to 
pay  for  it. 

It  is  an  Army,  moreover,  as  Lloyd  George  pithily  de- 
scribed it,  of  "volcanic  energy."  Something  is  immediately 
needed;  the  Army  is  told  it  can  not  be  had — and  lo,  it 
appears !  Something  has  to  be  done ;  the  Army  is  told  by 
experts  it  will  take  three  months  to  get  it  done — and  lo, 
the  Army  peels  off  its  tunics,  falls  to,  and  the  thing  is  ac- 
complished in  fewer  weeks  than  the  experts  estimated 
months !  Physically,  it  is  practically  a  perfect  body  of  men, 
literally  the  "flower  of  the  country's  youth."  Weaklings 
have  been  carefully  eliminated.  We  shall  not  be  encum- 
bered at  the  outset,  as  were  Belgium,  Prance  and  Eng- 
land, by  men  who  can  not  stand  the  hardships  of  campaign- 
ing, and  who  accordingly  clog  the  hospitals  and  hinder 
vital  operations.  The  Army  also  conspicuously  contains 
imagination,  good  nature,  intelligent  willingness.  If  it 
swaggers  a  bit,  and  brags,  and  regards  "foreigners"  as  a 


56  WITH    THEEE    ARMIES 

"funny  bunch  o'  boobs  who  have  to  be  shown,"  charge  that 
to  its  lack  of  experience. 

In  some  things,  alas,  it  is  too  experienced !  It  uses  lan- 
guage which  is  truly  not  the  speech  of  any  other  folk 
under  heaven.  It  is  the  most  uselessly,  habitually  profane 
Army  in  the  world ;  and  it  does  not  curse  with  discrimina- 
tion or  finesse.  Some  swearing  is  a  liberal  course  in  the 
joy  of  living.  American  profanity,  contrariwise,  is  a  mere 
matter  of  a  bad  word  between  every  two  good  ones.  It 
is  guilty,  moreover,  both  officers  and  men,  of  looking 
"upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,"  on  occasion,  and  mak- 
ing a  deal  of  good-natured  noise  about  it  where  it  at- 
tracts attention.  I  am  quite  aware  of  the  denials  re- 
cently made  of  this.  But  I  speak  of  what  I  personally 
witnessed.  General  Pershing  made  only  a  relative  state- 
ment of  the  Army's  morals — "There  never  has  been  a 
similar  tody  of  men  to  lead  a^  clean  lives  m  our  American 
soldiers  in  France" — and  that  statement  is  absolutely  true; 
but  it  should  be  read  with  the  same  intelligence  as  that 
with  which  it  was  written.  At  luncheon  on  the  Grands 
Boulevards  one  noon  I  picked  up  conversation  with  a 
French  officer  who  evidently  thought  me  an  Englishman. 
At  a  near-by  table  a  party  of  Sammies  grew  noisier  and 
noisier  over  their  wine.  ''Via,  ces  AmericainsT  gestured 
the  officer.  "All  they  do  is  drink,  drink,  drink,  and  roar, 
roar,  roar !"  Fortunately,  Sammy's  special  providences  are 
doing  a  good  deal  to  lessen  this  objectionable  feature. 

On  the  steamer  going  over  I  had  been  impressed  by  the 


Major-General  Pershing  and  staff  at  a  French  aerodrome  watching 
evolutions  of  the  flying  men 


All  that  is  left  of  the  chateau  at  Avrecourt — Somme 


The  church  of  Villers-les-Roye 


Desolation 


LES    YANKEES  57 

Y.  M.  C.  A.  only  as  a  clean-cut  and  companionable  crowd 
of  healthy-minded  young  Americans  full  of  the  joy  of 
living — and  the  desire  to  college-yell  French.  Arriving 
late  in  the  evening  in  Paris,  when  my  hotel  restaurant  was 
closed,  I  started  out  to  hunt  dinner.  Passing  the  most  dis- 
reputable of  the  larger  music-halls,  I  was  amazed  to  see 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  man  to  whom  I  had  taken  most  fancy 
boldly  entering  it  in  full  uniform.  Dinner  was  forgotten 
in  the  scent  of  news.  I  followed  him  in,  expecting  that 
when  he  saw  me  he  would  try  to  sneak  away,  or  lose  him- 
self in  the  throng  of  cocottes,  half-drunken  civilians  and 
soldiers  and  general  ne'er-do-wells.  Not  a  bit  of  it!  He 
came  straight  toward  me  with  outstretched  hand. 

"What  are  you  doing  in  here?''  I  demanded  severely. 
"Is  this  the  sort  of  thing  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  sent  you  over 
to  see?" 

He  grinned  at  me  witH  cheerful  assurance.  "Yep ! 
What  you  doin'  here?  's  no  place  for  you,  if  what  I've 
heard  is  true,  and  it  looks  like  it,"  he  finished,  glancing 
around. 

I  repeated  my  question,  and  he  laughed  at  me.  "Why, 
friend,  I  came  in  here  to  see  what  I  have  to  fight !  How'm 
I  goin'  to  talk  right  to  the  boys  if  I  don't  know  what  I'm 
talkin'  about?  I  reckon,"  he  added,  sidling  over  toward  a 
helpless  infantryman,  "I  got  a  case  right  now.  So  long, 
old  man — don'fc  stay  too  long!"  He  tackled  the  intoxicated 
American,  untangled  him  from  his  two  harpies  and  a 
pillar,  dismissed  the  women  so  sharply  they  stayed  dis- 


58  WITH    THEEE    ARMIES 

missed,  and  led  his  first  case  heavily  away  into  the  night 
and  safety. 

I  had  a  new  vision  of  the  Y.  M,  C.  A.  from  that  night. 
Everywhere  I  went  the  story  was  the  same.  Temptation, 
disease,  danger,  death  even,  have  no  terrors  for  these  sturdy 
American  gentlemen  in  khaki.  They  may  not  all  follow 
the  same  abrupt  methods  as  my  friend  of  the  music-hall 
incident,  but  they  do  not  scold,  they  do  not  preach  idle 
words,  they  do  not  balk  at  anything.  More  than  all,  they 
have  the  human  view-point,  and  instead  of  conventional 
religion  which  seldom  really  gets  under  a  man's  pelt,  they 
give  him  service,  sympathy,  hard  work;  they  make  him 
realize  that  when  he  wants  anjrthing,  whether  a  sheet  of 
letter-paper  or  a  spiritual  bracer,  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  or  a 
pleasant  evening's  entertainment,  they  are  instantly  ready 
to  supply  it.  They  always  know  what  they  are  talking 
about,  and  they  measure  what  they  can  do  only  by  the  limit 
of  their  powers. 

The  Salvation  Army,  because  of  its  methods,  helps  a  type 
of  man  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  might  not  always  be  able  to  deal 
with  successfully.  It  reaches  out  into  the  dark  on  the  re- 
ligious side  with  tremendous  effect,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
young  soldier  it  saved  a  week  or  two  before  he  was  left  on 
the  field  when  the  charge  had  passed.  "Done  for !"  sighed 
the  officer  searching  for  wounded.  The  lad  opened  his  eyes 
and  smiled  feebly.  "No!'^  he  whispered  with  his  last 
breath.  "Gone  west — ^but  not  done  for !" 

The   Catholic  society,  the  Knights  of  Columbus,  has 


LBS    YANKEES  69 

joined  hands  witH  the  other  organizations,  and  is  working 
with  them  in  complete  harmony  and  sympathy.  Indeed, 
one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  the  day  for  Christianity 
is  the  entire  subordination  of  anjrthing  like  denomina- 
tionalism  in  the  merciful  work  of  all  these  bodies.  The 
initials  K.  C.  at  first  puzzled  many  of  the  soldiers.  One 
British  Tommy  pondered  the  matter  long  and  soberly,  then 
demanded  of  an  American  friend — would  that  Bairns- 
father  could  have  sketched  him  asking  it! — ^^Siy,  mite, 
wot  th'  'ell  yuh  got  a  King's  Counsel  in  iJamerica  for?" 

The  Jewish  society,  which  confines  its  activities  largely 
to  the  men  of  Hebraic  extraction  and  interests,  is  doing  a 
very  important  and  valuable  work  that  no  other  body  could 
perform  so  well.  The  greatest  amount  of  the  religious  work 
is,  of  course,  being  handled  by  the  chaplains,  who  are 
directly  charged  with  the  spiritual  welfare  of  their  com- 
rades. But  if  the  chaplain's  work  ended  there,  it  would  be 
insignificant  indeed  compared  to  what  he  is  actually  ac- 
complishing. Less  gentle  than  all  these,  but  exceedingly 
persuasive  in  their  methods,  are  the  M.  P.'s,  the  American 
Military  Police.  These  husky  individuals,  chosen  for  their 
character,  sobriety  and  size,  patrol  in  pairs  wherever  the 
soldiers  congregate.  Wearing  an  armband  that  proclaims 
their  office,  and  armed  with  a  short  nightstick  reinforced 
by  the  heavy  Army  automatic  pistol  for  emergencies,  they 
are  doing  excellent  work  of  the  most  thankless  sort. 

Of  course,  the  Eed  Cross,  being  by  far  the  largest  and 
most  noted  of  all  the  American  organizations  that  go  with 


60  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

tlie  Army,  is  the  most  universally  recognized.  And  where 
would  Europe  be  to-day  without  it?  What  would  have  hap- 
pened in  a  thousand  cases  where  relief  was  needed  instantly, 
without  red  tape  or  deliberation,  when  human  lives  in  great 
numbers  hung  in  the  balance,  waiting  for  the  help  that  only 
quick  decision  and  the  speediest  action  could  bring  ? 

One  of  the  finest  things  we  have  done  in  France  was  the 
housing  of  the  Red  Cross  supplies,  vast  stocks  of  which  were 
piling  up  on  wharf  and  street  exposed  to  the  weather,  since 
no  building  big  enough  to  shelter  them  was  available. 
Some  quick  scouting  was  done,  and  the  stables  of  one  of 
the  old  Paris  cab  companies  were  discovered.  The  Erench 
shook  their  heads.  "They  won't  do,  gentlemen.  They  are 
unsanitary,  they  are  full  of  manure,  they  have  no  facilities 
of  any  kind.  It  will  take  at  least  three  months  to  put  them 
into  shape.  Meantime  your  supplies  will  be  spoiled.'' 

The  Red  Crossers  examined  the  filthy  old  stables,  talked 
a  little — and  less  than  three  weeks  later  the  supplies  began 
moving  into  a  monstrous,  clean,  cement-floored  warehouse 
which  smelled  sweet  and  which  was  sweet.  The  French 
gasped — ''Impossible r  It  was.  But  American  uncommon 
sense  knew  any  market-gardener  would  gladly  cart  away 
manure  without  charge.  Then  the  Red  Crossers  got  off 
their  coats,  cleaned  house,  mixed  cement  and  laid  floors, 
built  runways,  turned  carpenter  for  the  nonce,  and  behold, 
there  was  a  vast,  dry,  modern  storehouse.  "Volcanic  en- 
ergy," indeed ! 

The  most  serious  moral  problem  our  Army  has  to  face 


LES   YANKEES  61 

affects  not  only  the  man  at  the  front,  but  America  itself; 
and  it  is  one  almost  impossible  of  comprehension  to  those 
who  have  not  been  across  within  the  last  year  or  so.  For 
a  number  of  years  there  has  been  a  steady  and  gratifying 
increase  in  the  general  morality  of  this  country.  Vice  has 
been  suppressed  to  such  an  extent  throughout  many  wide 
regions  that  the  general  moral  tone  of  the  community  has 
been  distinctly  raised.  Europe  as  a  whole  is  more  immoral, 
and  more  openly,  shamelessly  immoral  now  than  ever 
before.  The  task  of  the  Army  chiefs  is  therefore  infinitely 
more  difficult  than  if  conditions  approached  normal.  The 
temptations  which  surround  the  soldiers  are  so  tempting, 
the  nervous  strain  to  which  they  are  being  subjected  so 
great,  the  social  conditions  so  strange  and  abnormal  to 
them,  the  persistence  of  the  vicious  element  so  unflagging, 
that  the  sturdiest  nature  is  bound  to  be  affected. 

The  matter  of  venereal  disease  is  only  a  part,  and  not  a 
vital  part,  of  the  situation.  The  Army  medical  staff  is  car- 
ing for  that,  and  no  soldier  will  be  returned  to  this  country 
who  is  not  first  completely  cured  of  any  taint.  Far  worse 
than  the  physical  is  the  moral  contamination.  That  no 
authority  can  prevent.  But  the  signs  are  hopeful.  America 
is  waking  up,  and  General  Pershing  has  his  greatest  ally 
in  the  mothers  of  the  United  States.  From  Maine  to  Cali- 
fornia they  are  realizing  that  this  is  their  problem ;  they  are 
trying  to  reach  the  boys  here,  to  follow  them  with  the  let- 
ters that  "keep  the  home  fires  burning"  in  every  soldier 
heart.    But,  0  Mothers  of  America,  to  safeguard  the  boys 


62  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

for  whom  you  have  suffered  and  cared,  don't  pracli — don't 
scold — don't  nag!  VEBBOTEN  signs  will  never  hold  an 
American !  But  you  can  make  your  boys  feel  their  honor, 
their  custody  of  your  honor,  of  America's  honor  perhaps 
most  of  all.  And  do  not  stop  there.  The  girls  are  an 
equally  important  task.  Eill  each  and  every  one  of  them 
with  the  sense  of  her  responsibility  to  herself,  to  society, 
to  America.  Give  them  the  picture  of  wifehood  and  moth- 
erhood as  a  background.  Make  them  see  that  thoughtless 
immolation  upon  the  altar  of  any  selfish  hero  is  not  only 
all  wasted  and  ruinous,  but  damning  to  the  hero  himself. 
I>o  it  lovingly,  as  well  as  thoroughly,  so  that  when  the 
boys  come  cheerily  marching  home  again,  into  an  at- 
mosphere of  adulation  close  to  worship,  they  will  find 
neither  temptation  nor  sentimental  weakness,  but  starry- 
eyed,  fearless  women  fit  to  be  mates  for  them  who  have 
risked  their  lives  for  honor's  sake.  And  meantime,  while, 
in  the  land  of  strife,  your  boys  are  beyond  your  reach  save 
for  the  infrequent  mails,  be  comforted,  0  Mothers,  by  the 
knowledge  that  Samm5r's  very  special  providences,  like 
scouts  flung  out  far  afield,  are  keeping  alive  and  powerful 
your  own  mother-spirit  of  guardianship  and  love — the 
spirit  that  is  to  keep  the  Army  clean  and  wholesome  and 
fit  to  return  home. 

Already  Messieurs  les  Sammees  Have  made  a  deeper  dent 
in  the  French  consciousness  than  five  generations  of  Amer- 
ican tourists  and  diplomatic  visitors.  I  think  France  ex- 
pected an  inundation  of  something  half-way  between  a 


LES    YANKEES  63 

Comanche  Indian  and  a  London  Johnny,  if  such  a  com- 
bination could  possibly  be.  What  she  actually  received 
astonished,  perplexed,  delighted,  amused  and  thrilled  her. 
The  black-eyed  girls  who  threw  flowers  in  the  path  of  the 
tramping  thousands  wept  unashamed.  The  children,  who 
looked  at  these  khaki  giants  at  first  shyly  and  then  with 
awe,  quickly  ensconced  themselves  in  the  hearts  of  the  men, 
and  in  return  were  promptly  spoiled  as  only  Americans 
can  spoil  children. 

Sammy's  first  meetings  with  the  avaricious  cabmen  were 
not  so  happy,  though  amusing  to  the  bystander.  Usually 
when  the  police  arrived  they  found  the  cabmen  nursing  a 
bloody  nose  or  a  cauliflower  ear,  and  wondering  what  in 
the  name  of  a  little  tin  can  had  happened !  In  the  towns 
near  which  the  men  are  training,  a  more  unfortunate  and 
quite  as  easily  accounted  for  phase  of  temperament  mani- 
fested itself.  A  soldier  would  go  into  a  debit  de  tdbac  or 
tiny  tobacco-shop,  and  secure  a  ten-cent  package  of  ciga- 
rettes, tender  five  or  ten  francs  in  payment,  and  when 
change — exceedingly  scarce  now  in  France — could  not  be 
made,  instead  of  going  somewhere  else  for  it  himself,  would 
mumble  something  and  leave  the  note,  going  off  with  his 
cigarettes,  not  exactly  happy,  but  not  unhappy,  either.  An 
hour  later  a  'poilu,  tossing  down  the  customary  half-franc 
for  the  same  cigarettes,  would  be  met  with  the  polite  state- 
ment that  the  price  had  gone  up.  Eesult:  Madame  loses 
the  sale,  'poilu  is  furious  at  her,  and  then,  when  he  dis- 
covers it  is  the  American  who  has  unconsciously  elevate^ 


64  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

the  high,  cost  of  smoking,  freezes  up  in  a  way  bewildered 
Sammy  can  not  understand. 

This  reputation  for  being  a  "good  spender"  has  extended 
all  over  France,  and  in  Paris  especially,  the  Grands  Boule- 
vards love  Sammee  dearly,  even  if  he  is  inclined  to  be 
rather  difficult  at  times,  and  insistent  upon  having  exactly 
what  he  orders  and  not  something  said  to  be  "the  same 
thing"  or  ^^just  as  good."  Every  Erench  girl  manages  to 
make  friends  with  a  big,  brown,  open-handed  American, 
the  trees  along  the  It  aliens  and  Capucines  and  beside  the 
Madeleine  sheltering  low-voiced  conversations  and  sign- 
language  understandings.  For  Sammee  plays  vigorously  as 
he  works,  and  he  is  chronically  "from  Missouri,"  whether 
it  be  in  learning  to  flirt  or  to  bomb  a  trench.  He  takes  to 
grenade-throwing  and  bombing  with  all  the  aptitude  of  a 
natural  baseball  player,  grasping  the  difference  in  the 
throwing  method  more  quickly  than  any  other  troops.  He 
makes  a  game  out  of  bayonet  drill  with  the  dummies,  and 
digs  trenches  as  blithely  as  he  goes  into  the  big  Chamber 
of  Horrors  for  the  gas-drills.  Whatever  he  touches  is  elec- 
trified; his  teachers  have  to  keep  on  the  run  to  hold  his 
pace! 

The  instructor  at  one  of  the  largest  aerodromes  in 
France,  where  some  of  our  naval  flyers  are  being  trained, 
has  grown  worn  and  gray  under  the  trials  they  have  un- 
consciously imposed  upon  him.  The  young  sailors  are  not 
only  absolutely  fearless,  but  they  insist  on  joking  with 
death  in  its  most  sudden  and  violent  forms.  Not  long  ago. 


LES   YANKEES  65 

when  one  of  these  young  daredevils  went  up  for  his  ^^solo," 
or  initial  flight  alone,  he  stalled  his  engine  while  still 
climbing.  The  machine  slowed,  stopped,  wavered — began 
those  horrible  zigzags  known  as  the  "falling  leaf  drop.'^ 
The  distracted  instructor  cried  out:  "Oh,  mon  Dieu — il 
est  mort!  II  est  morti  Oh,  my  God,  he's  killed,  he's 
killed!" 

The  youngsters  in  the  field  laughed  at  him,  and  one 
young  wretch  replied  to  the  face  of  horror  he  turned  upon 
such  brazen  callousness :  "Don't  you  worry,  mussoor.  He'll 
land  O.K.    See  if  he  don't!" 

At  that  moment  the  novice  got  his  engine  restarted, 
tilted  his  planes  too  far,  and  came  roaring  down  straight 
toward  the  earth  in  a  nose-dive  that  looked  absolutely 
fatal.  Still  the  boys  laughed  at  his  wild  gyrations.  The 
Frenchmen  could  not,  and  waited  silently  for  the  frightful 
crash.  It  never  came.  A  few  feet  above  the  ground,  the 
nervy  flyer  gave  his  planes  a  violent  twist,  hoisted  his 
machine  almost  vertically  with  a  jerk,  and  finally  landed 
without  a  bump.  He  was  distinctly  peevish  at  being  scolded 
for  the  risks  he  had  taken. 

Another  man,  mistaking  the  course  of  the  wind,  came 
down  with  it  blowing  across  his  machine  from  side  to  side, 
and  was  drifted  into  an  orchard,  where  he  crashed  among 
the  apple  trees.  Every  one  ran  when  the  smash  was  heard, 
and  the  Frenchmen,  from  instructor  to  mechanics,  ex- 
pected to  find  him  crushed.  When  they  reached  the  spot, 
he  was  sitting  calmly  on  the  ground,  eating  one  of  the 


66  .WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

apples  shorn  off  by  the  fall  that  had  torn  loose  his  wings, 
and  gently  dropped  his  unhurt  fuselage  between  the  trunks. 
Unlike  their  French  and  British  brethren,  the  Americans 
are  talkative  about  their  exploits,  and  there  is  freshness 
and  charm  to  their  stories,  even  when  the  tales  are  so  obvi- 
ously exaggerated  as  to  be  made  of  the  whole  cloth.  Sammy 
exercises  his  imagination,  and  knows  it  is  so  good  he  enjoys 
listening  to  it  himself. 

The  man  who  commands  this  splendid  Army  is  Major- 
General  John  J.  Pershing.  Every  one  in  America  speaks 
of  Pershing,  and  very  few  know  anything  about  him.  To 
those  who  know  the  man  as  well  as  the  soldier,  his  selection 
for  the  greatest  military  post  America  has  ever  been  able 
to  give  any  man  seemed  most  happy  and  fortunate.  Fifteen 
years  ago  it  was  the  writer's  good  fortune  in  tho  distant 
Philippines  to  meet  and  know  Captain  Pershing,  to  whom 
fell  the  soul-testing  task  of  governing  unruly  Moroland. 
Other  professional  soldiers  had  been  there  before  him  and 
left  no  record  of  importance.  Captain  Pershing  made  the 
Moro  understand  once  and  for  all  that  an  American  "Yes !" 
meant  yes,  and  an  American  "No!''  meant  no.  A  strict 
disciplinarian,  but  just  and  cool-headed,  he  has  shown  him- 
self able  to  digest  facts  before  forming  a  working  opinion ; 
and,  more  than  that,  when  once  his  opinion  is  formed,  re- 
fusing to  be  swayed  by  every  wind  of  chance. 

Fortunately  for  the  world,  he  has  the  respect  and  con- 
fidence of  the  chiefs  of  the  other  Allied  Nations  and  Ar- 


LES   YANKEES  €7 

mies  and  tHe  devotion  of  his  own  officers  and  men.  The 
soldierly  qualities  that  enabled  him  to  accomplish  so  much 
in  the  Philippines  are  enabling  him  to-day  to  keep  every- 
body in  the  American  Army  in  France  literally  on  the 
Jump,  working  as  hard  as  he  himself  works,  performing 
miracles  in  the  only  way  they  can  be  performed,  through 
that  very  Biblical  combination  of  complete  faith  and  works. 
Without  any  of  the  erratic  and  uncertain  qualities  of  ge- 
nius. General  Pershing  has  that  other  quality  of  it,  the 
"capacity  for  taking  infinite  pains,'^  that  augurs  much  for 
his  ability  to  carry  his  big,  happy,  wholesome,  schoolboy- 
spirited  Army  to  the  victory  that  only  a  big  ideal  and  a  big 
man  can  make  possible. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  BRITISH  IN"  FRANCE  :  AN  HISTORICAL  CONTRAST 

To  THE  student  of  history  there  is  unusual  significance 
and  -interest  in  the  presence  of  armed  but  friendly  British 
forces  in  France;  of  significance  because  it  marks  a  vital 
realization  of  the  dream  of  the  late  King  Edward  VII,  of 
gracious  memory,  who  strove  for  a  closer  intercourse  be- 
tween the  two  Nations,  and  of  interest  because  it  is  a  com- 
plete reversal  of  the  one-time  common  policy  of  self-interest 
that  so  long  held  them  at  swords'  points.  For  France  and 
England  not  only  have  not  always  been  Allies,  but  much 
more  often  have  fought  each  other  bitterly,  once,  in  the 
so-called  Hundred  Years'  War,  for  more  than  a  century. 

All  through  northern  France  there  are  monuments  and 
memories  of  the  battle  flux,  when  victory  rested  sometimes 
with  one  side,  sometimes  with  the  other:  the  tablet  at 
Abbeville  to  heroic  Ringois,  who  preferred  death  over  a 
cliff  to  renouncing  his  king  and  country — France ;  the  slab 
over  the  spot  in  the  old  market-place  of  Rouen,  where  the 
English  burned  the  shining  maid,  Jeanne  d'Arc;  the  ruin 
of  Richard  the  Lion-Heart's  Chateau  Gaillard — ^where 
Philippe  Auguste  made  good  his  threat  of  capture — still 
crowning  the  hilltop  of  P'tit  Andely  and  an  exquisite 
vision  of  the  Seine;  the  inexpugnable  abbey-fortress  of 

68 


THE   BBITISH   IN  I^MNCE  69 

Mont  St.  Michel,  striving  heavenward  from  the  water  in 
pile  upon  pile  to  its  piercing  spire  and  saint ;  most  vital  of 
all,  the  Bayeux  tapestry,  that  strip  of  seamless  linen  whose 
faded  needlework  tells  graphically  the  stirring  tale  of  the 
French  raid  forever  famous  as  the  Norman  Conquest  of 
1066,  with  as  universal  a  humanity  and  appeal  as  though 
it  were  a  series  of  snapshots  for  a  twentieth-century  sensa- 
tional newspaper. 

The  present  pacific  Anglo-Saxon  Conquest  of  Erance 
completely  reverses  the  Norman  Conquest  of  England. 
Almost  a  thousand  years  separate  them  in  time ;  the  whole 
range  of  human  purpose  and  principle,  in  activity.  The 
English  of  1066  fought  hard  and  surrendered  grudgingly; 
the  French  of  1914  welcomed  their  whilom  enemies  with 
cries  of  joy.  And  instead  of  conquering  as  their  sires  had 
once  been  conquered,  the  "First  Hundred  Thousand"  of 
Kitchener's  "contemptible  little  army"  and  its  millions  of 
gallant  successors,  though  they  bore  arms  of  more  frightful 
potentialities  than  1066  ever  dreamed  of,  won  their  way 
by  the  richest  gifts  ever  one  people  gave  another — limitless 
gold,  boundless  good  will,  unnumbered  human  sacrifices. 

Xenophon  and  Caesar  were  their  own  war  correspondents, 
and  saw  to  it  that  the  homefolks  got  suitable  news.  One 
wonders,  in  the  light  of  modern  warfare,  with  its  spies  and 
its  censors,  its  correspondents  and  political  visitors  wan- 
dering about  the  different  fronts,  how  "The  Eetreat  of  the 
Ten  Thousand"  and  *'De  Bello  Gallico"  would  have  been 


70  WITH    THEEE    ARMIES 

told  had  a  layman  or  a  political  opponent  of  tlie  command- 
ing general  been  able  to  write  and  smuggle  the  manuscript 
past  the  censorship !  General  Byng's  laconic  account  of  his 
famous  tank  advance  was  a  mere  skeleton,  for  instance, 
compared  with  the  news  account  of  the  same  thing,  with 
its  ringing  anecdote  of  the  commander  who  "expected 
every  tank  to  do  its  damnedest !" 

Before  entering  the  British  lines,  I  gave  my  word  I 
would  not  reveal  certain  things.  Then,  by  a  curious  pair 
of  mistakes,  I  blundered  squarely  into  a  forbidden  zone, 
was  put  in  the  w^ay  of  becoming  dangerous  to  myself  as  a 
repository  of  military  information  really  of  value,  and  by 
another  blunder  got  safely  away  with  no  other  evil  result 
than  a  heart  which  sometimes  even  yet  flutters  when  I  think 
of  the  connection  so  frequently  established  between  alleged 
spies  and  stone  walls !  Like  the  small  boy  who  has  accident- 
ally discovered  the  Christmas  presents  on  the  top  shelf  of 
the  closet,  I  have  seen  a  most  amazing  number  of  interest- 
ing things,  and  fairly  burst  with  eagerness  to  tell.  But  the 
most  interesting  may  not  even  be  hinted  at.  Only  "Xeno- 
phon"  or  ''Cgesar"  will  ever  hint  at  them,  in  the  "Official 
Communique"  which — to  those  who  know — is  aggravation 
personified. 

The  British  line  of  communications  leading  to  the  front 
begins  on  the  English  Channel  coast,  darts  across  the 
stormy  strait  in  a  lane  guarded  and  swept  and  watched 
by  fleet  destroyers  and  cruisers,  trawlers  and  minesweepers, 
and,  on  reaching  the  French  coast,  sweeps  north  and  east 


THE    BIUTISH    IN    FRANCE  71 

through  Belgium  and  France  to  the  bloody  swales  around 
Nieuport  and  blasted  "Wipers"  (Ypres),  Arras  and  the 
other  focal  points  in  that  general  region.  It  is  historic 
soil  to  the  English.  Their  troops  to-day  pass  not  far  from 
Crecy-en-Ponthieu,  where,  in  1346,  the  British  longbows 
slaughtered  more  Frenchmen  than  there  had  been  live 
Britons  when  the  fight  began.  Froissart  relates  that  the 
fourteenth-century  British  "clothyard"  shafts  swirled  down 
upon  the  heavily  armored  French  knights  like  a  snow- 
storm, and  threw  them  and  their  mired  chargers  into  writh- 
ing confusion  in  the  sticky  mud.  He  might  almost  have 
been  writing  of  a  twentieth-century  shrapnel  barrage,  whose 
tufts  of  smoke,  blown  by  the  breeze,  would  pass  very  well 
for  just  such  a  deadly  snowstorm. 

To  pass  over  the  main  line  of  the  British  communica- 
tions is  to  have  a  slight  appreciation  of  what  the  machinery 
of  modern  war  means  behind  the  lines.  Without  it  the  man 
in  the  fighting  trench  could  not  keep  his  post  a  day.  Never 
for  an  instant  must  this  machinery  be  dislocated — or  some 
gun  will  go  without  its  meed  of  shells,  some  dressing  sta- 
tion without  the  vital  chloroform  or  bandages,  some  con- 
tingent without  its  food  or  supplies.  Guns  and  men  and 
animals  mount  up  into  the  dozen  or  more  millions.  That 
means  nothing:  nobody  knows  what  a  million  of  anything 
is  like.  But  watch  an  ammunition  convoy,  and  begin  to 
understand.  Every  gun  of  five-inch  caliber  or  greater  re- 
quires twenty-five  five-ton  motor  truckloads  of  shells  every 
day  to  keep  in  continuous  action.     Put  a  hundred  yards' 


72  WITH    THREE    AEMIES 

space  between  each  car  and  its  successor,  and  tHe  convoy 
trails  along  for  a  mile  and  a  half.  That  feeds  one  gun  one 
day.  In  the  "big  push"  undertaken  every  so  often,  the  guns 
sometimes  stand  almost  wheel  to  wheel  for  the  whole  width 
of  the  attack.  The  task  of  feeding  them  is  titanic ;  bring- 
ing up  shells  is  only  one  item  among  thousands. 

It  is  a  sweating,  toiling,  patient  river,  this  main  road, 
whose  stream  of  everything  men  at  war  can  need  has  flowed 
steadily  for  more  than  three  years  in  an  ever-increasing 
flood.  The  congestion  at  Eifth  Avenue  and  Forty-second 
Street,  New  York,  is  its  only  possible  comparison,  and  that 
is  hopelessly  inadequate.  And  notwithstanding  the  un- 
numbered troops  and  auxiliaries,  the  guns  big  and  little, 
the  horse-drawn  caissons  and  limbers,  the  dog-drawn  ma- 
chine-guns of  the  Belgians — ^both  Armies  use  this  road, 
which  further  complicates  trafiic  and  temper  alike — ^the 
snorting  steam  road-rollers  and  the  inevitable  French  and 
Belgian  farm  wagons,  which  never  get  out  of  the  way  when 
they  can  help  it.  Tommy  Atkins  calmly  preempts  half  the 
battered  road,  tears  it  to  pieces  and  then  proceeds  without 
haste  or  waste  to  remake  it.  Staff  officers  fly  by  at  sixty 
miles  an  hour  and  drench  him  with  showers  of  mud  or 
choke  him  with  cutting  chalk-dust.  He  wipes  his  eyes 
clear,  swears  vigorously,  and  falls  to  again.  A  regimental- 
train  rumbles  heavily  along  and  holds  up  his  work  for  five, 
perhaps  ten,  minutes.  Thomas  leans  on  his  shovel  or  pick 
or  corn-broom,  lights  his  pipe  and  ponders  like  the  phi- 
losopher he  is. 


THE    BRITISH    IN    FRANCE  73 

Color  is  added  to  the  kaleidoscope  by  the  canal  alongside, 
where  dainty-looking  little  French  monitors  with  one  very 
persuasive  naval  gun  glide  noiselessly  by  under  their  own 
steam — craft  that  would  float  in  a  heavy  dew,  but  able  to 
back  up  the  land  troops  with  their  havoc-making  diapason. 
Great  French  canal-boats  almost  awash  with  precious  loads 
of  coal,  timber,  food  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  war 
of  to-day,  trail  along  at  a  snail's  pace  in  tow  of  trim- 
looking  tugs.  British  canal-boats,  too,  cleaner  of  line  than 
their  Gallic  companions,  built  of  steel  every  one  and  popu- 
lated by  Tommies  in  khaki,  snail  past  with  a  sergeant  at 
the  wheel,  smoking  his  pipe  and  appearing  vastly  com- 
fortable in  his  unusual  surroundings — ^^a  bloomin'  bargee, 
'im — ^wot?'^  Here  and  there  a  tremendous  British  chain- 
dredge  idles  by  the  bank,  waiting  a  call  to  deepen  or  widen 
the  shallow  flood,  or  a  flock  of  stripped-down  Tommies 
repairs  a  wooden  barge,  builds  a  new  hospital-boat,  or  erects 
something  of  temporary  value  on  the  farther  bank. 

Fritz  has  the  range  of  that  section  of  the  road  nearest 
the  front  to  a  hair.  Most  often  he  shells  it  by  night,  evi- 
dently with  the  intention  of  interfering  with  the  movement 
of  supplies  and  the  transfer  of  wounded — and  always, 
when  skimming  over  it  at  breakneck  speed  after  dusk,  one 
has  an  uneasy  consciousness  of  that  lurking  monster  gun 
that  throws  a  shell  nearly  five  feet  long  and  ten  or  twelve 
inches  thick  a  distance  of  thirty-eight  kilometers — a  mere 
trifle  of  something  more  than  twenty-five  miles ! 

Shooting  at  a  twenty-five-mile  range !   Imagine  Edward 


74  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

Ill's  bowmen  returned,  to  see  their  fellows  brought  down 
by  a  missile  they  could  hear  but  not  see  coming,  fired 
from  a  gun  as  far  away  from  them  as  Boulogne  is  from 
Folkstone !  The  wars  of  the  fourteenth  century  were  won 
by  the  personal  vision  and  skill  of  the  commander ;  so  were 
wars  as  recently  as  Napoleon's  time.  But  to-day  science  is 
the  brain  and  very  life-blood  of  warfare.  The  quarter- 
master keeps  the  troops  supplied  and  happy  because  of  the 
exact,  scientific  disposition  and  action  of  every  atom  in  his 
vast  department.  The  lorries  have  their  instructions  as  to 
what  turnings  they  must  make,  and  how  fast  they  may  go, 
even  what  they  may  and  may  not  do  if  they  run  into  shell- 
fire,  and  a  man  at  the  tailboard  who  notifies  the  chauffeur 
to  turn  out  if  a  fast  vehicle  wishes  to  pass.  The  geologist 
dabs  colors  on  a  map  which  tells  the  ordnance  and  intelli- 
gence officers — the  latter  nicknamed  "Brains"  because  he 
knows  everything! — "Here  you  may  mine,  and  here  you 
must  not;  here  it  is  safe  to  dig  trenches;  yonder  any  ex- 
cavation will  instantly  fill  up  with  water  or  cave  in."  The 
very  weather-man,  once  so  hooted  at,  plays  a  vital  role. 
IN'apoleon's  gunners  paid  no  attention  to  changes  of  tem- 
perature because  they  served  their  pieces  in  full  view  of 
the  enemy.  To-day  the  artillerist,  registering  with  perfect 
accuracy  upon  a  target  anywhere  from  one  mile  to  twenty 
miles  distant,  must  change  the  elevation  of  his  guns  with 
each  change  of  temperature  sent  him  by  the  weather  bureau 
— or  drop  his  shells  upon  his  own  troops.  Not  one  thing  is 
left  to  chance  or  personal  skill. 


THE    BRITISH    IK   FRANCE  75 

The  feeling  of  hostility  between  France  and  England 
was  not  seriously  modified  until  the  Victorian  Era.  France 
by  that  time  had  had  opportunity  to  realize  the  falseness 
of  the  ISTapoleonic  ambitions  and  the  value  of  a  solid  foun- 
dation for  her  empire,  and  England,  under  the  tempering 
influence  of  Queen  Victoria  and  her  advisers,  was  looking 
out  upon  mankind  in  general  with  eyes  whose  vision  had 
been  clarified  by  her  experience  of  1776.  Since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  friendly  relations  of  the  two  nations,  the  cities 
where  the  English  once  struggled  to  maintain  a  foothold 
solid  enough  to  enable  the  King  of  England  to  add  to  his 
titles  "of  France'^  have  developed  wonderfully,  especially 
the  Channel  ports  most  directly  in  touch  with  their  British 
opposites.  Boulogne,  for  instance,  grew  a  thriving  English 
trade  and  colony,  with  one  citizen  in  every  fifty  a  Briton 
in  1906 — this  within  a  century  of  the  time  when,  on  the 
chalk  cliffs  behind,  N'apoleon  gathered  the  vastest  army  of 
his  time,  two  hundred  thousand  strong — think  of  that  as 
a  "vast"  army! — ^to  invade  England,  began  his  huge  me- 
morial column,  and  rather  prematurely  struck  off  coins  to 
pay  his  troops,  each  piece  boldly  inscribed  "coined  in  Lon- 
don," or  something  to  that  effect ! 

Of  these  ancient  seaports,  the  one  nearest  the  front,  still 
full  of  helpless  women  and  children,  and  plastered  over 
with  signs  instructing  the  inhabitants  where  to  shelter  in 
case  of  bombardment  or  air  raids,  sleeps  but  fitfully. 
Heavy  British  guns  roar  nightly  responses  to  the  German 
artillery's  raucous  bellowing.  Houses  and  public  buildings 


76  WITH  THBEE   ABMIEB 

are  pock-marked  with  shrapnel,  partly  blown  to  bits  by  the 
explosions  of  aerial  torpedoes  and  bombs,  and  racked  every 
so  often  by  the  huge  shells  that  drop  in  to  keep  garrison 
and  population  on  their  toes.  Half  a  mile  nearer  the  Ger- 
man lines,  in  a  dreamy  little  plage  or  coast  resort,  the 
"movie'^  Casino  lost  a  door  and  most  of  its  end  one  day  last 
summer  as  the  result  of  an  H.  E.  (the  abbreviation  of 
^•^high  explosive")  bomb.  A  few  rough  boards  were  nailed 
over  the  wound,  and  when  I  was  there  the  crowd  filed  in 
just  the  same  to  see  the  latest  film,  with  calm  disregard  of 
possible  danger. 

A  little  farther  away  one  can  sleep  o'  nights,  though  the 
rumble  of  the  heavy  guns  is  always  evident,  and  the  marks 
of  terrific  maltreatment  are  visible  everywhere.  One  can 
dine  well  here,  too — ^with  the  entree  to  an  officers'  mess  or 
the  restaurants  operated  now  largely  for  the  benefit  of  the 
khaki-clad  invaders.  What  the  civilians  eat  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  know,  though  the  markets  seem  well  stocked,  and 
the  butcher-shops  replete  with  the  horrid-looking  skinned 
carcasses  customary  in  France,  repulsively  suggestive  of 
anatomical  charts  in  color.  It  takes  an  effort  to  eat  even  a 
rabbit  after  seeing  what  he  looks  like  under  that  soft  and 
pretty  pelt ! 

The  "Golden  Sands''  of  the  Picard  coast  that  link  the 
famous  medieval  towns  together  like  gray  shells  upon  a  shin- 
ing silken  cord,  have  known  the  English — swarms  of  them 
— as  tourists,  "summer  people"  and  semi-invalids.     How 


THE   BRITISH   IN   FRANCE  77 

different  the  English  the  "Golden  Sands'^  welcome  now. 
Here  were  pretty  children,  as  in  other  days,  but  very  few  and 
very  quiet  now,  even  in  their  play;  here  were  parents  and 
friends  and  families  as  in  those  peaceful  years,  but  all  with 
the  undertone  of  shadow  in  their  once  clear  English  eyes; 
here  were  pretty  English  girls,  but  instead  of  wearing 
bathing-suits,  they  were  garbed  in  the  sober  dignity  of 
nurses.  But  the  young  men,  the  smiling  and  gallant  young 
Englishmen  who  used  to  overflow  sands  and  links  and  tea- 
rooms— !  They  lay  in  cots,  they  reclined  in  wheel-chairs, 
they  sat  on  the  grass,  they  pottered  feebly  about  on  sticks 
— or  they  lie  forever  dreaming  in  the  little,  square,  white- 
fenced  acres  where  only  unpainted  wooden  crosses  tell  the 
story,  and  the  gay,  friendly  dance  of  the  French  poppies 
above  their  fast-closed  eyes  keeps  aflame  the  torch  their 
hands  have  passed  on  to  their  comrades. 

It  was  a  brilliant  afternoon  last  September,  when  the 
dancing  sapphire  of  the  Channel  was  blurred  here  and 
there  by  hazy  blobs  of  gray  ships  in  the  distance,  when 
oflficers  with  golf  bags  over  their  shoulders  played  uncon- 
cernedly over  the  hilly  cliff  links,  and  convalescent  Tom- 
mies walked  out  with  French  and  English  maidens  along 
the  chalky  roads,  on  which  German  prisoners  toiled  lei- 
surely under  the  sharp  eyes  of  British  sentries,  that  I  came 
upon  the  great  hospital  and  cemetery  section.  Previous 
English  invasions  have  planted  hundreds  of  their  dead  in 
the  fertile  spil  of  France;  but  now — !   In  America  we 


78  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

know  in  a  vague  sort  of  way  that  men  are  killed  in  such  a 
war  as  this ;  but  to  come  suddenly  upon  a  concrete  display 
of  this  abstract  fact  brings  the  truth  home  with  a  shock. 

Here,  the  heroic  dead;  yonder,  working  leisurely,  the 
healthy,  sturdy,  contented  prisoners,  evidencing  in  every 
possible  way,  patched  and  ragged  though  they  were,  their 
satisfaction  at  being  out  of  the  hell  they  had  created.  Their 
air  of  insolent  superiority  to  the  men  who  had  captured 
them  was  maddening.  I  wondered  that  the  British  could 
treat  them  like  men.  The  irony  of  life  jarred  heavily. 
They,  who  boasted  f rightfulness,  lived;  these  others,  who 
fought  for  everything  right  and  decent  and  chivalric,  won 
the  supreme  decoration  of  war — ^the  wooden  cross. 

British  and  French  are  wise,  nevertheless,  in  the  treat- 
ment they  give  the  prisoners.  It  is  totally  undeserved,  it 
is  exceedingly  costly,  and  it  requires  a  large  number  of 
soldiers  as  guards;  yet  it  is  a  policy  that  will  perhaps  go 
further  in  civilizing  the  German  than  any  political  measure 
or  trade  restriction  that  can  be  taken  when  the  actual  fight- 
ing is  done.  It  is  an  education  for  these  men,  who  from 
boyhood  have  been  taught  to  despise  the  French  and  hate 
the  English.  The  treatment  they  are  accorded  as  prisoners 
is  compelling  them  to  see  that  the  Englishman  is  not  born 
with  hoofs  and  a  tail,  that  the  Frenchman  is  no  swagger- 
ing blow-hard  unable  to  make  good  his  word.  And  when 
they  go  back  to  a  beaten  Germany,  however  they  may 
mourn  the  downfall  of  their  politicians  and  warriors,  they 
will  know  also  how  they  have  been  systematically  lied  to 


THE    BRITISH    IN    FRANCE  79 

and  brutalized  by  wilful  misstatements  of  everything — even 
of  Germany's  own  needs  and  aims.  France  and  England 
by  their  generosity  and  political  sagacity  are  planting  fer- 
tile seeds  far  deeper  in  the  German  heart  than  any  blunder- 
ing German  wiseacre  of  efficiency  and  Kultur  knows. 

Another  of  these  gray  old  Picard  ports  is  completely 
transformed.  The  best  hotel  is  the  H.  Q.  of  the  B.  R.  C, 
or  in  plain  American,  the  headquarters  of  the  British  Red 
Cross;  all  the  other  hotels  are  chock-ablock  with  British 
khaki;  and  truculent  English  M.  P.'s,  or  Military  Police, 
regulate  the  dense  traffic  as  smartly  and  coolly  as  London 
Bobbies,  at  the  same  time  keeping  a  watchful  eye  on  the 
soldiery  forever  passing  among  the  throngs  on  the  almost 
impassable  streets. 

The  harbor,  hardly  more  than  a  slim  estuary,  through 
which  the  ebullient  tides  rush  at  racehorse  speed,  is  con- 
gested beyond  belief  with  what  looks  to  the  landsman's  un- 
educated eye  like  a  hopeless  tangle  of  fishing  smacks  and 
war  craft,  passenger  liners,  troopships,  cargo-boats  and 
others,  all  in  bedraggled  gray  war  paint,  and  all  disgorging 
or  engulfing  unimaginable  quantities  of  men  and  supplies. 
Every  wharf  is  a  mountain  of  boxes,  crates,  barrels,  pack- 
ages of  every  sort,  bearing  the  Broad  Arrow  of  His  Majesty's 
Service.  Day  and  night  the  loading  and  unloading  goes  on 
at  high  pressure,  almost  without  a  break.  Where  and  how  is 
all  this  vast  materiel  transported  ?  It  is  always  there,  it  is 
coming  in  and  going  out  every  day  in  a  stream  of  incom- 
parable magnitude,  yet  it  never  overflows.  The  long  quays 


80  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

can  hold,  at  the  utmost,  perhaps  two  days'  cargoes.  British 
thoroughness  and  scientific  management  is  taking  care  of 
.it  all  in  a  silent,  unemotional,  perfectly  methodical  pro- 
cedure devoid  of  either  haste  or  lost  motion,  that  gets  it  up 
to  the  front  or  back  to  England  without  perceptibly  un- 
hinging the  usual  business  of  the  community. 

By  night  the  town  tucks  its  war-weary  head  under  its 
wing  and  tries  to  hide  in  silent  darkness  from  the  prowling 
enemy  in  the  air.  But  by  day  its  medieval  streets  are  as 
jammed  as  lower  Broadway,  its  shop-windows  a  curiosity, 
full  of  foreign,  mostly  American  goods.  English  signs  are 
everjrwhere.  Often  the  most  patently  American  articles  are 
boldly  announced  as  ^'British  Made''  to  tempt  the  wary 
buyer  who  nowadays  asks  where  a  thing  is  manufactured. 
Almost  every  State,  from  Maine  to  California,  is  repre- 
sented by  everything  imaginable,  from  a  huge  machine  to 
chewing-gum,  from  whisky  to  the  weekly  with  the  largest 
circulation,  all  jumbled  together  in  an  endless  hodge-podge 
along  the  Grande  Rue  and  its  tributary  side  streets.  The 
climax  of  Americanism,  when  I  was  there,  was  reached  in 
a  black-and-white  sign,  fifty  feet  long  by  ten  feet  high, 
spread  across  the  fagade  of  a  "Cinema"  theater — 
CHARLES  CHAPLIISr  TO-DAY.  Eour  years  ago  the 
staid  old  city  would  have  gagged  over  such  an  irregularity ; 
now  it  piles  Pelion  on  Ossa  and  clamors  for  more ! 

Every  one  of  these  cities  is  a  rumor-factory,  and  once  in 
a  while,  if  one  has  the  stomach  to  laugh  at  horrors,  the 
daily  fable  brings  forth  something  so  utterly  impossible  it 


AVIS 

(Texte  francais) 


Tons  les  habitants  de  la  maiaoo,  D  Texceptiun  des  enrants  au-dessous  de  44  ans  et  de  leiira 
mires,  ainsi  qo'i  rexcepttoo  de«  \ietnard8,  doivenl  se  prtparer  pour  *tre  iransport^s  dans  uoe 
beare  ei  demie. 

Un  oiBeier  dteidera  d6finitivement  quelieA  i^ersonnes  seront  conduites  dan*  les  oamps  de 
rdonioo.  Dans  ca  bat.  tous  les  habitants  de  la  maisoii  doivenl  se  r^unir  devaot  leur  habitation :  en 
cas  de  raaurais  temps,  i)  est  permis  de  rester  dauj>  le  couloir.  La  porie  de  la  maison  devra  resler 
ouverte.  Joute  rtelamation  sera  inutile.  Aucun  habilani  de  la  maison,  oi^me  reux  qui  oe  seront 
pas  Iraosportto,  ne  pourra  quitter  la  maison  avant  8  beures  du  matin  (heure  ailemande). 

Chaque  personne  aura  droit  i  30  kilograion)es  de  bogai^es;  s*il  y  aura  un  exc€dent  de  poids, 
tous  les  bagages  de  «ette  personne  seront  rvtuBAt  sans  egards.  Les  colis  ilevroni  etre  fails 
s^par^ment  pour  chaque  personne  el  raunis  d'une  adresse  Usiblement  £crite  et  solidemcnt  Gx^. 
L'adresse  devra  porter  le  qqia,  le  pr^nouv  el  lo  numero  de  ?a  carle  d  identity 

D  est  lout  -a  fait  o^cessairb  .do  se  niunir  dans  sun  propre  iateret  d'usteosiles  pour  boire  et 
manger,  ainsi  que  d'udo  oouverture  de  latne,  de  bonnes  chaussures  et  de  tinge.  Chaque  personne 
devra  porter  sur  .ellc  sa  cart*  d'ideQ(ll&  Quicont|ue  essaiera  de  se  sousiraire  au  transport  sera 
impitoyablemeoi  piul 

ETAPPEN-KOBOIANDANTUIL 

JL///e.  Avrtl  i9t6. . 


OSrOTICE 
XFrencE  Texty 

All  the  inhabitants  of  the  house,  with  the  exception  of 
children  under  14,  and  their  mothers,  and  also  of  old 
people,  must  prepare  themselves  for  transportation  in  an 
hour-and-a-half  s  time. 

An  officer  will  definitely  decide  whicH  persons  will  be 
taken  to  the  concentration  camps.  For  this  purpose  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  house  must  assemble  in  front  of  it.  In 
case  of  bad  weather,  they  may  remain  in  the  passage.  The 
door  of  the  house  must  remain  open.  All  appeals  will  be 
useless.  No  inmate  of  the  house,  even  those  who  will  not 
be  transported,  may  leave  the  house  before  8.0  a.  m.  (Ger- 
man time). 

Each  person  will  have  a  right  to  30  kilogrammes  of  lug- 
gage; if  anyone's  luggage  exceeds  that  weight,  it  will  all 
be  rejected  without  further  consideration.  Packages  must 
be  separately  made  up  for  each  person  and  must  bear  an 
address  legibly  written  and  firmly  fixed  on.  This  address 
must  include  the  surname  and  the  Christian  name,  and  the 
number  of  the  identity  card. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  people  should  provide 
themselves  in  their  own  interest  with  eating  and  drinking 
utensils,  as  well  as  with  a  woolen  blanket,  strong  shoes  and 
linen.  Everyone  must  carry  his  identity  card  on  his  per- 
son. Anyone  attempting  to  evade  transportation  will  be 
punished  without  mercy. 

-r-n     A     -1  ^^^^  Etappen-Kommandantur.* 

Lille,  April,  1916. 


♦The  "Etappen"  are  the  German  military  depots  on  the  lines  of 
communication. 


THE   BRITISH   IN   PEANCE  81 

feeems  an  infinitely  delightful  bit  of  poetic  justice  or  humor. 
!N"ot  a  great  while  before,  according  to  one  story  I  heard, 
the  Germans  bombed  a  certain  military  camp  near  the 
coast,  where  the  French  had  a  couple  of  thousand  Anna- 
mite  Chinese  coolies  in  wooden  barracks.  Close  to  this 
labor  compound  was  a  barrack  full  of  hoche  prisoners.  The 
flyers  came  down  close  enough  to  make  sure  they  would  not 
hit  their  own  people,  and  carefully  blew  up  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  the  helpless  Annamites.  Bombing  a  military  estab- 
lishment being,  of  course,  a  perfectly  ethical  proceeding, 
the  authorities  had  no  valid  objection.  The  Annamites 
had !  After  the  mess  was  cleaned  up,  they  held  a  private 
council  of  war,  decided  that  retaliatory  measures  were  re- 
quired, and  before  the  guards  and  sentries  could  interfere, 
had  raged  through  the  prisoners,  cutting  the  heads  almost 
off  a  considerable  number  with  their  long,  heavy  knives. 
Whether  the  tale  is  true  or  not,  it  is  one  of  innumerable 
others  which  illustrate  the  risks,  natural  and  freakish  alike, 
to  which  every  one  along  the  front  is  exposed  dav  by  day 
and  almost  hour  by  hour. 

Nearly  five  hundred  years  ago,  British"  and  French  stood 
side  by  side  in  the  market-place  of  Eouen,  while  bells 
boomed  above  the  flames  blooming  around  the  sweet  white 
face  of  Jeanne  d'Arc.  The  great  Hundred  Years'  War  was 
drawing  to  its  close.  Once  more  a  great  war  is  drawing  to 
its  close.  Once  more  British  and  French  stand  side  by  side. 
But  in  this  twentieth  century  the  mighty  spirit  of  that 


83  WITH   THEEE    AKMIES 

Maid  of  Orleans  who  once  led  her  countrymen  against  the 
British  hosts,  now  rises  prophetic  and  energizing  above  the 
combined  Armies  to  wave  them  on*  through  whatever  may 
befall  of  danger  or  sacrifice,  to  the  victory  already  shadowed 
in  the  Gotterdammerung  slowly  but  irresistibly  descending 
upon  the  war  gods  of  the  Hun. 


*0n  several  occasions  bodies  of  French  troops  have  reported 
that  in  the  heat  of  action  they  have  beheld  a  shining  vision  of 
the  Maiden  Saint. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ALONG  THE  BRITISH  FRONT 


The  staff  Motor  whirled  along  a  deserted  white  ribbon 
of  road  between  tall  poplars  etched  black  against  the  sunset 
skies.  It  was  well  after  seven,  and  the  air  was  chill  witK 
the  dew.  Ahead  of  ns  somewhere  in  the  rolling  country 
that  dipped  and  rose  like  the  Atlantic  swell  lay  the  Amer- 
ican Visitors'  Chateau,  a  lovely  little  sixteenth-century 
castle  with  slender  turrets  and  a  moat,  where  for  a  few 
days  two  other  Americans  and  myself  were  to  be  guests  of 
the  British  Government.  Not  a  sound  but  the  purring  ex- 
haust of  the  motor  could  be  heard;  we  were  the  onlx  living 
things  in  the  whole  vast  landscape. 

No  one  spoke.  Slowly  the  radiance  died,  and  the  stars 
came  out.  Our  StafE  Captain  leaned  forward  in  his  seat 
beside  the  driver,  screwing  his  monocle  a  little  tighter  into 
his  eye  and  listening  intently  as  he  stared  into  the  distance. 
Behind,  we  three  looked  and  listened  too. 

Boom!  Boom!  Boom!  Boom-hoom-hoomr-'boom! 

Low  and  heavy  and  hoarse,  hardly  audible  at  first,  came 
the  sullen  grumble  in  Fritz's  throat  many  miles  away  at 
the  front,  as  he  began  his  twilight  '^strafe."  The  sky  flashed 
with  a  wicked  red  glare  like  heat-lightning.  In  that  lurid 
instantaneous  blaze  woods  and  spires  and  the  figures  of 

83 


84  :WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

Captain  and  chauffeur  splashed  the  sky  with  inky  silhou- 
ettes. Twenty  miles  away  somebody  was  "catehin'  it  'ot/' 
and  we,  far  off,  could  hear  the  rumble,  see  the  diabolical 
beauty  of  it,  nothing  more — ^the  distant  hiccups  of  Mars, 
reveling  in  his  illuminated  palace. 

Down  into  a  little  valley  dropped  the  motor,  whirled  off 
to  one  side  through  a  field,  darted  through  a  close-growing 
copse,  and  honked  for  the  gateway  to  the  Chateau  grounds. 
Again  we  honked  at  the  drawbridge,  while  a  solitary  white 
swan  peered  up  at  us  curiously  from  the  flickering  waters 
of  the  darkly  forbidding  moat.  Not  forbidding  in  the  least 
was  the  yawning  stone  portal,  but  delicately  Gothic  and 
inviting.  So  was  the  carven  door  of  the  structure  itself 
^ — ^beyond  the  cobbled  court — ^where  lights  twinkled  out  to 
make  us  welcome. 

The  great  reception  hall,  from  which  a  broad  flight  of 
oak  stairs  wound  upward  into  the  dark,  was  decorated  in 
hit-or-miss  fashion  with  German  trophies  of  all  sorts,  from 
helmets  and  gas-masks  to  shell  splinters  like  forked  light- 
ning. To  my  astonishment,  the  restoration  of  the  structure, 
which  had  been  variously  maltreated  in  its  somewhat 
stormy  past,  had  been  a  restoration  for  use,  not  beauty. 
The  wooden  paneling  was  glaringly  of  the  cottage-by-the- 
sea  order ;  only  where  the  carven  stone  of  graceful  window 
or  delicate  molding  peeped  at  one  did  the  age  and  original 
beauty  disclose  themselves.  But  though  the  restoration  was 
modern,  the  restorer  evidently  was  not — ^he  had  forgotten 
or  ignored  modern  heating,  despite  the  dank  autumnal 


ALONG   THE   BRITISH   FRONT  85 

fogs  that  settle  low  in  the  little  valley.  In  the  salon, 
where  every  one  gathered  for  those  delightful  evenings 
after  dinner,  a  monstrous  medieval  fireplace  crackled 
cheerily,  and  scorched  our  faces  and  toes.  But  only  the 
generous  assortment  of  tall  and  squatty,  dark  and  brilliant 
bottles  on  the  table  could  dispel  that  inner  chill  we  Amer- 
icans all  felt. 

Here  gathered  men  of  every  stamp  and  every  degree  of 
ability  and  individuality.  Our  hosts  were  geniality  and 
consideration  personified.  One  ofiicer  was  a  professional 
soldier  with  a  long  Indian  record,  and  a  Britannic  calm 
nothing  could  shake.  Another  was  a  member  of  one  of  the 
most  famous  regiments  England  has — and  a  Mississippi 
planter  of  twenty  years'  experience,  whose  cultivated  Eng- 
lish was  toned  by  the  soft,  languid  drawl  of  our  own  South. 
Another  had  been  a  courtier  before  the  war  sent  him  to  the 
front  in  a  regiment  noted  for  its  fieriness  and  daring.  Each 
one  of  them  possessed — ^and  exercised — ^personal  charm,  and 
did  his  utmost  to  show  and  tell  us  Americans  everything 
we  could  legitimately  expect. 

Eight  at  the  start,  as  a  dessert  after  breakfast,  we  were 
initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  the  gas-mask,  drilled  in  put- 
ting it  on  and  wearing  it,  shown  how  to  carry  it  ordinarily 
— ^hanging  at  one's  side — and  how,  when  in  danger  of  a 
gas  attack,  it  must  be  opened  and  strapped  close  up  under 
the  chin,  where  the  face  can  be  plunged  into  it  at  the  first 
whiff  of  the  sickly,  hardly  perceptible  danger.  The  mask 
itself  is  not  bad,  but  the  clothespin  clamped  over  one's  nose 


86  WITH   THKEE   ARMIES 

— suggestive  of  beauty-parlor  treatments ! — compelling  the 
wearer  to  breathe  through  the  mouth-tube  only,  is  dis- 
tinctly fretting.  I  had  anticipated  a  genuine  drill,  in  a 
gas-filled  chamber,  but  that,  it  seems,  is  reserved  for  the 
fighting  men. 

The  Staff  motors  of  the  Chateau,  speedy  little  low-hung 
cars  painted  a  greenish  khaki  tone,  are  distinguishable  by 
the  white  stencil  on  their  sides  of  a  somewhat  impression- 
istic French  castle  that  looks  enough  like  the  real  thing  to 
give  the  cars  quite  an  air,  and  "set  up"  their  occupants 
over  the  passengers  in  vehicles  bearing  less  notable  heraldic 
devices.  Day  after  day  in  these  manorial  equipages  our 
guardians  carried  us  to  different  parts  of  the  front — and 
the  ^^back,"  which  is  quite  as  important — and  in  one  re- 
spect only  were  they  adamant:  they  would  not  let  us  risk 
our  lives  as  recklessly  as  some  of  us  wished  in  our  en- 
deavors to  see  and  know  everything. 

What  does  the  "front"  look  like?  Is  it  a  ditch  filled  by 
soldiers  in  khaki,  leaning  toward  a  similar,  opposite  trench, 
and,  behind  each,  field  guns  neatly  arrayed  in  batteries  ? 

Standing  on  Vimy  Ridge  one  brilliant  September  after- 
noon, I  looked  out  over  the  slightly  undulating  plain  that 
stretches  away  to  Lens  and  Li6vin,  where  both  the  British 
and  German  forces  were  entrenched.  The  two  towns,  save 
for  obvious  damage,  looked  entirely  normal  and  quiet ;  even 
with  powerful  binoculars  I  could  find  not  one  trace  of  guns, 
trenches,  camouflage,  or  anything  that  looked  in  the  least 


ALONG   THE   BRITISH    FRONT  87 

like  a  very  active  sector  of  the  firing  line.  Not  an  English- 
man was  in  sight,  but  far  in  the  background,  two  or  three 
thousand  yards  distant,  I  could  occasionally  pick  up  a  Ger- 
man with  my  glasses  as  he  darted  from  one  house  or  shelter 
to  another.  Nothing  else  moved. 

Lens  is  the  center  of  a  great  coal  district.  Near  it,  and  dot- 
ting the  plain  to  our  left,  were  the  wrecks  of  some  coal-mine 
structures,  huge,  gaunt,  forbidding  skeletons,  lugubriously 
black  and  silent — ^wounded  Martians,  they  seemed.  Right 
at  our  feet,  partly  concealed  in  a  scooped-out  hollow  in  the 
Ridge,  was  a  monstrous  nine-point-two  British  howitzer. 
Over  it  spread  a  messy-looking  network  of  cordage  and  wire, 
supporting  a  tangle  of  branches,  grass,  scraps  of  cloth  and 
burlap,  and  some  painted  bits  of  canvas — camouflage  for 
the  probing  eye  of  the  enemy  observer,  be  he  concealed  in 
an  0.  P.  (Observation  Post) — on  the  front  everything  is 
called  by  its  initials — or  scooting  far  overhead  in  a  flying- 
machine.  Beneath  the  screen  the  silent  monster  itself  was 
no  neat  black  or  shining  steel  weapon,  but  a  tricky  figment 
of  the  imagination,  shapeless  and  weird,  a  horribly  smeared 
and  dappled  thing  of  ungainly  curves  and  blobs  of  confus- 
ing colors.  The  futurist  painters  must  have  had  prevision 
of  this  war !  About  the  breech  lolled  some  artillerists,  con- 
tentedly taking  their  ease.  Here  a  man  wrote  a  letter,  an- 
other sprawled  on  his  back  in  a  comfortable  dream,  a  third 
worked  about  the  breech  mechanism,  a  fourth  smoked  his 
pipe  as  he  cleaned  his  personal  equipment,  while  the  oflBcer 
lay  in  a  makeshift  chair  reading  a  novel  in  pink  covers. 


88  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

The  whole  sector  was  quiet.  It  was  more  than  quiet :  it 
was  silent,  absolutely  silent,  with  the  Sunday  stillness  of 
a  country  road  in  summertime,  when  the  buzz  of  a  fly  is  a 
loud  sound.  These  intervals  of  silence  are  one  of  the  great 
features  of  the  front.  They  come  at  night,  by  day;  at  that 
ghastly,  greenish-gray-heliotrope  hour  of  before-dawn 
which  the  poetic  French  know  as  Vhewre  inauve,  "the 
mauve  hour;'^  often  between  violent  artillery  actions.  No 
one  can  tell  when  they  will  come  nor  how  long  they  will 
last.  They  mean  no  relaxation  of  vigilance  or  hatred,  and 
sometimes  they  end  in  a  lively  local  strafe.  But  when- 
ever they  come,  they  are  a  blessed  relief  to  nerves  tortured 
by  shrieking  shells  and  constant  explosions. 

The  sun  poured  down  upon  a  glinting  pool  just  this  side 
of  wrecked  Lens,  and  bathed  the  shattered  houses  there 
with  beauty.  A  crow  suddenly  cawed  loudly.  It  was  as 
startling  as  the  boom  of  a  gun.  The  artillerists  looked  up 
inquiringly.  A  dull  boom  shattered  the  calm  somewhere 
out  in  front  of  us — it  seemed  as  if  the  crow  had  given  the 
signal  to  end  the  quiet.  A  mile  away  a  puff  of  dust  rose  in 
the  plain — Fritz  was  ^^sending  a  few  over,'^  evidently  in 
the  hope  of  hitting  something  British.  The  puff  of  dust 
rose,  expanded,  spread  out  into  fan-shape,  slowly  blew 
away  on  the  light  breeze.  While  it  was  still  expanding,  we 
heard  the  distant  note  of  the  gun  that  had  fired  the  shell. 
The  gunners  of  the  big  howitzer  returned  to  their  peaceful 
preoccupations.  Another  shell  came  over.  This  time  it  fell 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  nearer  us,  and  we  could  hear  the  whistle 


ALONG  THE  BRITISH   FRONT  8a 

as  well  as  tHe  dull  blast  of  its  explosion.  My  Staff  Captain 
— ^we  were  alone  that  day — ^thought  we  had  better  take 
cover  in  a  convenient  shell-hole;  perhaps  we  had  already 
drawn  attention  to  the  0.  P.  near  which;  we  had  been 
standing. 

A  six-inch  shell-crater  made  an  uneasy  mattress  where 
we  lay  on  our  stomachs  and  watched  Fritz  "feel"  blindly, 
as  the  artillerymen  say,  for  something  near  us.  His  big 
gun  fired  methodically  about  once  a  minute,  covering  every 
square  of  the  terrain  in  his  particular  field  with  beautiful 
precision.  Aladdin's  genii  worked  no  more  terrible  or  in- 
spiring wonders.  An  already  ruined  house,  a  bit  of  road,  a 
tree,  a  piece  of  field  rose  in  dusty  smoke  and  vanished.  I 
watched  it,  breathless  with  the  hellish  beauty  of  each  thun- 
derous burst — at  which  my  dry-nurse  yawned  or  gave  a 
casual  grunt  of  disapproval. 

And  now  a  new  noise  became  distinctly  audible.  Half  a 
mile  or  so  behind  us,  a  British  aeroplane  took  wing,  and 
cruised  nonchalantly  up  and  down,  to  and  fro  along  the 
front,  sailing  with  the  motionless  ease  of  a  frigate  bird 
at  sea,  only  its  eyes  moving  as  it  peered  hither  and  yon, 
hunting  for  that  German  battery  that  was  making  the 
rumpus.  Not  a  German  machine  was  in  the  air — Fritz  was 
"totally  blind''  that  afternoon,  and  his  gunners  had  to  do 
what  they  could  without  the  aid  of  their  aerial  observers. 
The  big  British  machine  covered  the  trenches  in  our  sector 
thoroughly,  and  then  calmly  sailed  across  the  German 
rearward  lines,  zigzagging  to  and  fro  above  a  furious  burst 


90  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

of  ^'Archies"  (anti-aircraft  guns)  that  "let  go"  at  it  in  a 
beautifully  timed  and  methodical  fire  so  ranged  as  to  cover 
a  circular  area  at  six  different  altitudes.  Our  British  friend 
simply  flirted  his  tail  defiantly,  made  a  beautiful  dive  like 
a  gull  striking  for  a  fish — and  moved  on,  replying  inso- 
lently with  two  or  three  spatters  of  shot  from  his  machine- 
gun  which  said  plainly  enough,  "Oh,  piffle  V 

Half  an  hour  later  the  four  winds  shook  with  a  rushing, 
mighty  noise  coming  out  of  nothing  from  nowhere;  soul- 
shaking,  inconceivably  awful.  Who  and  what  and  how 
many  were  they,  these  flying  daemons  so  far  aloft,  so  per- 
fectly tinted  the  strongest  glass  could  not  reveal  them? 
Twenty  long,  ominous  minutes  they  were  in  passing.  Not 
until  afterward  did  we  know  we  had  heard  the  gathering 
of  a  great  squadron  of  naval  planes  sent  over  in  reprisal  to 
bomb  a  German  garrison  and  munitions  town.  I  am  glad 
not  to  have  seen  them:  seen,  their  mysterious  awfulness 
would  have  been  lost. 

All  this  time  our  howitzer  was  silent.  The  British  plane 
continued  to  cruise  to  and  fro.  Suddenly  a  man  came  from 
the  dugout  beside  the  gunpit  and  handed  a  slip  of  paper 
to  the  ofiicer.  The  monstrous  piece  galvanized  into  life. 
The  seven  gunners — ^three  we  had  not  seen  before  appeared 
like  prairie  dogs  popping  out  of  their  holes — ^jumped  to 
their  work,  the  monster  shell  was  hoisted  and  rammed 
home,  the  charge  placed  in  the  yawning  breech,  the  huge 
block  swung  shut  and  screwed  fast.  The  officer  barked  a 
word.  Back  upon  its  dirty  haunches  jerked  the  gun,  with 


ALONG   THE    BRITISH    FRONT  91 

an  eartK-shaking  roar  and  a  belch  of  flame  tHat  shot  fifty 
feet  up  into  the  air  from  its  elevated  muzzle.  As  the  barrel 
swung  back  into  position,  the  man  at  the  breech  opened  it 
deftly,  and  a  second  sheet  of  flaming  gas  and  sparks  licked 
out  with  a  vicious,  curling  vehemence:  the  backfire. 
Through  the  air  shrieked  the  shell — swoosh-shshsh!  swoosli- 
shshsh!  swoosh-shshsh!  We  tried  to  follow  its  flight  with 
our  binoculars.  A  dirty  brownish-gray  pulf  of  smoke  and 
an  instant  later  a  dull  boom  far  away  on  the  other  side  of 
Lievin  rewarded  us.  Again  and  again  the  gun  roared. 
The  men  moved  swiftly  and  methodically,  without  haste, 
without  excitement,  but  as  steadily  and  rapidly  as  the  per- 
fectly functioning  parts  of  a  machine — ^until  five  o'clock. 
Then  they  knocked  off  target  practise  and  had  tea.  Tea 
on  the  battle  front !  I  suspect  the  British  heaven  includes 
tea — and  jam. 

Tea  done,  the  howitzer  began  again,  this  time  with  cor- 
rected ranges,  evidently,  for  only  three  or  four  shots  were 
fired.  The  last  one,  instead  of  coming  to  our  eyes  and  ears 
as  a  puff  and  a  boom,  came  in  a  terrific  concussion  that 
shook  even  the  Ridge  where  we  were,  and  a  blast  of  sound 
a  thousand  times  heavier  than  any  single  shell  could  make. 
The  nine-point-two  must  have  landed  a  shell  fairly  on  the 
ammunition  dump  beside  the  German  gun,  for  silence  fell 
again  thick  and  soft.  That  same  evening,  only  two  hours 
after  we  had  left  the  Ridge,  one  of  our  Captains  at  the 
Chateau  came  to  me  excitedly  and  said:  "My  word,  old 
chap,  they  are  simply  shelling  blazes  out  of  Lens  and 


92  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

Lievin  right  now.  Must  have  started  almost  as  soon  as 
you  left/' 

I  cried  out  in  disgust.  "We  lay  out  there  all  the  after- 
noon and  saw  a  nice  lot  of  blue  sky  and  a  little  desultory 
firing,  and  now  you  tell  me  they  are  really  busy !" 

Captain looked  his  astonishment  at  such  American 

sentiments;  then  he  sobered.  "It  isn't  quite  as  safe  near 
that  observation  post  now  as  it  was  then/'  he  remarked, 
and  turned  the  subject.  I  knew  then  that  one  of  those  gal- 
lant observers  on  the  Ridge  must  have  "gone  west." 

While  we  were  still  on  the  Ridge,  a  very  raw  young 
Canadian  recruit  hung  about  us  like  a  friendly  yet  bashful 
child,  asking  questions  and  finally  demanding  of  my 
courtier-Captain:  "Say,  would  you  mind  letting  me  have 
your  opera  glasses  a  minute  ?" 

To  his  eternal  credit  be  it  said  that  Captain  X — —  never 
batted  an  eyelash,  but  handed  over  his  magnificent  binocu- 
lars. Presently  the  Canadian  unbosomed  himself.  In  a  few 
jerky  sentences  I  would  give  a  good  deal  to  be  able  to  re- 
produce, he  told  us  how  his  only  brother  had  been  killed 
when  the  Canadians  stormed  the  Ridge  in  April,  how  he 
had  enlisted  to  avenge  him,  and  how,  actually  on  the  scene, 
he  was  looking  vainly  for  the  exact  spot  where  his  brother 
had  fallen.  We  left  him,  as  we  went  down  to  our  car, 
standing  on  the  very  summit  of  the  Ridge,  a  clear  target 
against  the  blue  sky,  still  looking  with  timid,  hungry  eyes 
for  the  spot  he  would  never  find. 

iVimy  and  Lorette  Ridges  tell  their  own  story  ol  tlxe 


ALONG   THE   BRITISH   FRONT  93 

furious  battle  that  for  months  swayed  back  and  forth  to 
determine  whether  the  Hun  or  the  Allies  were  to  hold  the 
commanding  ground  of  that  section  of  northern  France. 
They  are  seamed  and  criss-crossed  from  end  to  end  with 
the  deep,  ragged  furrows  of  the  trenches,  pocked  with 
craters,  and  covered  everywhere  (in  September)  with  battle 
debris  the  Salvage  Corps  had  not  yet  cleaned  up.  One  had 
to  walk  carefully — ^unexploded  bombs  and  grenades  are 
tricky  things,  and  the  slightest  touch  may  set  them  off. 
Here  and  there  the  shell-fire  had  blown  trenches  and  dug- 
outs out  of  all  semblance  to  anything  but  refuse  heaps.  In 
one  place  I  found  a  big  mound  with  two  German  snipers' 
steel  body-shields  partly  protruding  from  it,  and  some 
German  hand-grenades  held  fast  beneath  the  debris  in  such 
a  way — considering  the  scraps  of  gray  uniform  I  could 
discern — that  I  did  not  care  to  pull  them  out.  The  Ridge 
is  trying  enough  to  mount  in  dry  and  pleasant  weather, 
when  all  one  has  to  dodge  are  shell-holes  and  wreckage. 
What  must  it  have  been  when  the  Canadians  swarmed  up 
its  slippery  clay  sides  in  the  rain,  under  a  torrent  of  fire! 
I  wondered,  too,  as  I  climbed  those  grim  slopes,  just  where 
it  was  that  young  Clancy  of  Texas  first  took  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  into  action  on  a  European  field. 

Near  the  Ridges  lie  the  almost  indistinguishable  ruins 
of  the  towns  that  once  nestled  under  their  shelter.  Lorette 
in  particular  is  a  melancholy  sight.  The  only  structure 
that  still  looks  as  if  man  had  built  it  is  the  stout  old 
churchy  roofless,  half  its  walls  shot  away,  brooding  over  the 


94  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

surrounding  desolation  with  the  pallid  despair  of  a  kindly 
spirit  whose  efforts  failed.  In  its  little  cemetery  graves 
have  been  disemboweled  and  their  dead  scattered;  monu- 
ments of  stone  and  iron  blown  to  atoms  or  bent  and 
twisted  into  grotesque  caricatures  of  their  original  pur- 
pose; huge  mounds  reared  and  huge  holes  dug;  and  right 
in  the  middle  of  it  all,  a  squat,  solid  little  stone  marks 
the  spot  where  the  Germans  buried  one  of  their  comrades. 

At  Bapaume  also  the  Hun  had  turned  the  burial  ground 
into  a  rubbish  heap,  and  here  again  he  had  buried  his  own 
dead.  Over  the  common  grave  where  scores  of  them  were 
interred  he  had  reared  a  heavy,  typically  Teutonic  monu- 
ment. It  struck  a  savage  note  standing  there,  while  all 
about  the  graves  of  the  Allies  were  marked  solely  with  low 
white  wooden  crosses. 

The  town  of  Bapaume  itself  is  as  shattered  as  one  might 
expect  after  the  terrific  combats  waged  about  it,  but  the 
most  picturesque  thing  along  the  entire  British  front  was, 
and  I  presume  still  is,  if  the  winter  winds  have  not  de- 
stroyed it,  at  Albert.  There  the  church  had  a  very  lofty, 
slender  spire,  with  a  gilded  figure  of  the  Virgin  at  its  top. 
Cut  almost  in  two  by  a  shell,  the  tower  swayed,  broke,  and 
fell  half-way  over,  leaving  the  statue  thrusting  out  at  right 
angles  from  the  rest  of  the  steeple,  its  extended  arm,  once 
raised  heavenward,  now  pointing  straight  at  tH©  German 
lines  in  mute  denunciation  of  the  outrage. 

Arras  is  perhaps  the  most  thoroughly  destroyed  of  all 
the  large  French  cities  along  the  British  lines^  SVhile  the 


Official  British  photograph— British  Pictorial  Service 

Arras  Cathedral,  taken  from  the  eastern  altar.   As 
found  by  British  troops 


ALONG    THE    BEITISH    FEONT  95 

Germans  held  it,  the  British  guns  tried  to  knock  it  to 
flinders ;  when  the  British  first  forced  their  way  into  it  the 
Germans  tried  their  best  to  make  it  too  hot  for  their  ene- 
mies. The  result  is  the  most  utter  chaos  imaginable ;  but, 
unbelievable  though  it  seem,  in  this  instance  the  very  chaos 
is  superb,  instinct  with  a  melancholy  grandeur  that  in  a 
measure  compensates  for  its  frightfulness. 

Some  of  the  individual  buildings  leave  memorable  pic- 
tures :  a  house  with  every  window  blown  in,  and  everything 
else  blown  out;  an  utterly  gutted  residence,  roofless  and 
floorless,  with  everything  heaped  in  wild  confusion  in  the 
cellar — and  a  shaving  mug  and  brush  still  serenely  stand- 
ing on  half  a  mantelpiece;  a  piano  with  its  whole  front 
blown  into  the  backyard,  its  rusty  strings  filled  with  plaster 
and  dust,  its  keyboard  a  convenient  shelf  for  machine-gun 
ammunition  by  the  hundred;  a  cafe  sliced  neatly  in  two, 
with  its  bar  and  bottles  in  the  standing  half — and  nothing 
broken. 

As  we  stood  looking  at  the  Cathedral  one  brilliant  morn- 
ing, and  marveling  at  the  unique  change  shell-fire  had  made 
— in  this  case  transforming  one  of  the  ugliest  Renaissance 
churches  in  France  into  a  sublime  and  inspiring  ecclesias- 
tical ruin — we  heard  a  noise  behind  us.  One  learns  in  the 
war  zone  to  move  quickly,  to  ascertain  the  meaning  of  any 
unusual  sound  on  the  instant.  Across  the  street  was  what 
had  been  one  of  those  tall,  gangling,  top-heavy  French 
houses  with  each  story  pushing  out  above  its  fellows.  The 
three  upper  ones  had  been  battered  into  a  tangle  of  beams 


96  WITH    THREE    AEMIES 

and  slates  and  stone;  hardly  a  square  foot  of  the  fagade 
but  was  marked  by  shrapnel  or  machine-gun  fire.  The 
ground-floor  shutters  were  making  the  noise,  and  as  we 
turned  toward  them,  they  opened.  A  very  pleasant,  wrin- 
kled, ancient  head  thrust  out,  and  a  very  pleasant  old 
cracked  voice  wished  us  a  very  good  morning. 

^^Good  morning  to  you,  Madame,'^  I  responded,  crossing 
the  street  to  her,  astonished  to  find  a  live  creature  in  the 
midst  of  this  desolation.  ^^How  long  have  you  been  in 
Arras  ?'^ 

"Soixante-douze ans.  Monsieur"  she  replied  with  a  brave 
smile.    "Seventy-two  years,  sir." 

"Ah,  yes — I  understand.  But  I  mean:  How  long  have 
you  been  here  since  the  bombardment?" 

"8oixante-douze  ans,  Monsieur,"  she  smiled  again.  "I  have 
never  left  Arras ;  not  even  when — ^"  She  finished  the  sen- 
tence with  another  courageous  smile  and  a  shrug  that  told 
volumes. 

It  was  unbelievable  that  any  human  creature  could  have 
endured  the  frightful  storms  which  had  raged  from  one 
border  of  Arras  to  the  other  for  months.  Shells  had  burst 
above  her  and  shredded  her  house  into  matchwood;  they 
had  fallen  in  the  street  before  her  very  door  and  blown  up 
the  sidewalk;  they  had  howled  and  shrieked  and  bellowed 
and  roared  on  every  side.  Men  had  fought  with  the  fury  of 
wild  beasts  all  around  her  without  harming  a  hair  of  her 
head,  and  now,  when  the  titanic  struggle  was  over,  she  was 


ALONG   TJIE    BRITISH    FRONT  97 

still  in  the  same  place — existing  no  one  could  tell  me  how, 
and  able  to  wish  a  cheery  good  morning  to  the  strange 
visitors  who  came  to  look  at  her  rained  Cathedral — one  of 
the  anomalies  of  a  war  in  which  the  impossible  has  become 
the  commonplace. 


CHAPTER   VII 

FAKTHER  ALONG  THE  BRITISH  FRONT — ^AND  BEHIND  IT 

A  SHORT  sap,  driven  out  toward  Fritz — Fritz  himself, 
invisible  seventy-five  feet  away  behind  a  tangle  of  barbed 
wire  and  a  parapet  of  mingled  earth  and  sandbags — a 
fresh-faced,  pink-cheeked  little  English  country  lad,  with 
a  clear  blue  eye  and  a  carelessly  held  rifle,  peering  steadily 
through  his  trench  periscope — ^my  Captain  and  I,  stealing 
along  sidewise  through  the  narrow  trench,  like  a  couple 
of  crabs. 

"Morning,"  whispered  the  Captain — ^we  were  too  close 
to  the  Hun  to  risk  ordinary  tones — as  the  blue  eyes  came 
away  from  the  eyepiece  of  the  periscope  for  a  moment. 
"How's  hunting?'' 

"Only  one  this  morning,  sir.   *ave  a  look?" 

The  little  sniper  backed  away  from  his  instrument.  The 
Captain  glanced  through,  and  turned  to  me. 

"Look  through — ^he's  out  there  near  the  Hun  wire — ^lit- 
tle to  the  right.'' 

My  unaccustomed  eye  searched  the  grass  and  debris  and 
wire  for  several  moments  before  I  located  the  dead  German, 
lying  in  an  ugly  tangle  of  twisted  limbs,  his  face  turned  up 
to  the  suQ,  his  rifle  lying  across  his  body,  his  crude  helmet 
standing  bucket-like  beside  him.  I  had  seen  dead  soldiers 
before,  so  the  silent  figure  gave  me  no  shock.    He  was  very 

98 


FARTHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND  99 

peaceful  and  calm,  with  no  further  hair-raising  patrols  or 
raids  to  risk.  But  the  executioner  did  shock  me:  he  was 
so  much  the  boy,  so  Juvenile  despite  his  practised  eye  and 
deadly  finger,  as  he  sat  there  at  his  periscope,  calmly  watch- 
ing for  the  least  sign  of  a  movement  that  he  might  send  a 
steel  messenger  to  it.  One  could  think  of  him  as  dancing 
gaily  with  a  pretty  girl  of  a  summer  evening,  or  being  very 
respectful  to  his  mother — and  here  he  was  at  one  of  the 
most  dangerous  posts  on  the  line,  responsible  for  the  safety 
of  the  men  in  his  trench,  the  spokesman  of  Death. 

After  consulting  the  trench  commander,  my  Captain 
said:  "It's  been  pretty  quiet  here  all  morning.  I  guess 
you  can  risk  a  look  over  if  you  want  to.  But  you  must 
move  your  head  slowly  up,  and  right  down  again,  without 
stopping  an  instant.^' 

At  that  moment  the  two  other  Americans  joined  us,  and 
we  made  our  way  to  a  little  bay  where  there  were  no  sol- 
diers. I  took  my  look  last.  It  was  not  very  satisfactory. 
All  I  could  see  was  exactly  what  I  had  seen  through  the 
sniper's  periscope,  except  on  a  much  larger  scale.  There 
was  the  shell-torn  ground  between  the  two  lines  of  trenches, 
the  opposite  tangles  of  barbed  wire,  the  enemy's  low  para- 
pet. I  never  have  been  quite  able  to  understand  what  went 
wrong.  Perhaps  I  stopped  moving  long  enough  to  locate 
myself  to  a  German  grenadier;  perhaps  the  keen  eyes  be- 
yond that  wire  chanced  to  locate  my  position  as  I  was  rais- 
ing my  head.  Whatever  the  fact,  a  vicious  crack!  tumbled 
me  down  into  the  bottom  of  the  ditch,  my  helmet  tinkling 


100  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

with  the  splinters  that  glanced  from  it.  Somebody  had 
fired  a  rifle  grenade  at  me,  but  I  had  luckily  escaped  with- 
out a  scratch.    My  Captain  looked  annoyed. 

Behind  me,  on  the  shelf  of  a  dugout,  lay  a  handful  of 
neat  little  Mills  bombs.  I  was  angry  at  being  made  a  tar- 
get when  I  merely  wished  to  peep,  and  so  I  reached  for 
one. 

^^Let  me  send  him  a  souvenir !"  I  begged. 

^^My  word,  no  V  exclaimed  the  Captain  hastily,  stretch- 
ing out  a  forbidding  hand.  "You  might  start  something 
that  would  cost  the  lives  of  fifty  men  before  we  got 
through.  You  might  be  killed  yourself  before  we  could  get 
away.'^  And  then  he  added,  in  perfectly  good  American, 
with  a  smile  at  his  own  humor,  "Nothing  doing !" 

A  Lieutenant  in  charge  of  a  monstrous  trench  mortar  in 
the  sector  tried  to  soothe  my  ruffled  pride  by  taking  me 
into  his  dugout  to  show  me  his  "sty  of  flying  pigs,"  and 
chuckled  gleefully  of  "a  pretty  little  strafe  we're  going  to 
start  at  three  o'clock.  We've  a  clean  hundred  pigs  for  him, 
and  the  big  uns  behind  are  going  to  have  a  little  practise, 
too." 

His  "pigs"  were  fat,  monstrous  shells  with  wings  on 
their  tails.  The  pot-bellied  mortar  that  lobs  them  over  in  a 
graceful  curve  was  a  mournful-looking  brute  compared 
with  the  large  howitzers  and  lean  naval  pieces  or  field  guns. 
The  "pigs,"  because  of  their  wings,  squeal  horribly  as  they 
fly,  and  burst  with  a  peculiarly  loud  and  nerve-shattering 
detonation,  declared  by  those  who  have  lived  through  it  to 


PARTHER  ALON<&— /iJ^D  \  St-l^JiiyD         101 

be  infinitely  worse  than  tHe  duller  boom  of  a  much  heavier 
shell. 

Before  we  left  the  trench,  the  music  began,  and  it  was 
sweet.  Somewhere  behind  us  to  both  right  and  left,  a  bat- 
tery went  into  action,  throwing  eighteen-pound  shrapnel 
into  the  very  trenches  we  had  just  peeped  at.  The  sharp 
report  of  the  guns,  the  whoooosh-woosh-woosTi !  of  the  shells 
as  they  flew  close  above  our  heads,  and  the  ugly  hang! 
they  made  in  front,  were  almost  simultaneous.  At  first 
there  was  the  irresistible  inclination  to  duck  at  each  one — 
which  made  the  seasoned  Tommies  smile  good  naturedly.  I 
wanted  very  much  to  stay  for  the  real  performance  half  an 
hour  later,  but  my  Captain  was  obdurate.  When  he  thought 
I  had  seen  enough,  he  hustled  me  away  so  fast  that  we  were 
out  of  even  ear-shot  when  the  flying  pigs  began  their  el- 
dritch squealing.  That  was  at  Croisille,  in  that  fiercely 
fought  region  where  the  long  battle  of  the  Somme  finally 
gave  dear-bought  victory  to  the  Allies. 

Never  were  there  more  mournful  specters  than  I  saw  in 
one  part  of  that  bloody  field — ^the  tanks!  Huge,  weird, 
antediluvian  monsters  of  rusty  black,  they  lay  motionless 
in  the  sticky  clay  not  far  from  the  highroad.  Here  one  had 
received  its  death  wound  as  it  was  crawling  heavily  from 
road  to  field,  shivered  and  stood  still  on  the  edge.  Its  ugly 
black  snout  and  ridiculous  little  rear  steering-wheels  some- 
how gave  it  the  air,  even  in  death  and  abandonment,  of 
striving  still  to  push  on  toward  the  vanished  enemy.  I 
clambered   in  through  the  roof — ^what   a  sight!    Space 


102  YfVni    TlIJ^EE    AEMIES 

enougH,  and  not  one  whit  more  than  enough,  for  the  seated 
crew,  the  machine  gunners  and  their  snarly  pets,  the  en- 
gines, the  ammunition,  the  tanks  for  '^^petrol"  and  oil. 
That  mangled  interior  told  a  story  clear  as  day:  the  ex- 
ploding shell  disabling  the  machinery;  wounding  or  kill- 
ing the  heroic  crew;  igniting  the  gasoline,  whose  terrific 
heat  exploded  the  thousands  of  rounds  of  cartridges,  tear- 
ing their  brass  shells  into  fantastic,  curly  shapes,  and 
spraying  the  whole  interior  with  bullets.  I  have  one  of 
the  bullets  in  my  pocket  now,  dented  on  the  nose,  chipped 
on  the  side,  scratched  and  scarred,  its  leaden  core  melted 
out. 

Four  other  tanks  rested  at  various  angles  within  a  half 
mile  or  so,  one  rearing  up  on  its  ungainly  haunches,  one 
thrusting  its  rusty  jaws  into  the  mud  it  seemed  to  bite 
in  its  death  struggle,  one  half  turned  over  on  its  side;  all 
of  them  terrible,  ludicrous,  inspiring — monsters  from  some 
prehistoric  age  who  had  gallantly  come  to  help  their  puny 
masters,  and  died  nobly  on  the  field  of  honor.  No  wonder 
the  symbol  of  the  Tank  Corps  is  the  fire-spitting  dragon, 
creature  of  legend  and  mystery ! 

The  Butte  de  Warlencourt  stands  out  from  the  plain 
of  the  Somme  Gibraltar-like,  a  huge  mound  of  gray  clay 
so  covered  with  craters  and  ^^duds"  (unexploded  shells) 
and  fragments  of  shells,  so  writhingly  torn  apart  and 
mangled,  that  it  looks  like  nothing  so  much  as  the  pitted 
floor  of  the  moon.  As  I  panted  up  its  steep  sides — ^where 
the  various  regiments  whose  simple,  impressive  monuments 


FARTHER  ALONG— AND  BEHIND         103 

crown  the  summit,  met  glorj^'s  shining,  deadly  face  with 
fearless  vision — I  wished  a  tank  might  be  hauled  to  the 
very  top  and  set  between  the  stone  shafts,  that  the  gallant 
fellows  who  met  a  flaming  death  within  their  steel  prison 
might  have  a  temple  the  world  could  never  forget.  For 
the  world  will  come  here  to  the  Butte  after  the  war  is  done 
— ^'Cooking  it"  along  the  Somme  field — and  the  tripperiest 
tourist  of  .them  all  could  not  but  pause  in  reverence  before 
such  a  memorial  and  go  home  to  spread  further  still  the 
fame  of  the  dragon-men  and  their  translation  in  their 
chariots  of  fire. 

Farther  along,  on  the  way  to  the  great  mine-crater  of 
Pozieres,  there  were  plenty  of  antitheses  for  the  clumsy 
tank,  with  its  three-miles-an-hour  speed,  and  its  clanking, 
roaring  noises — the  dainty,  swift,  noiseless  carrier  pigeons 
which  are  also  a  vital  part  of  the  Army's  equipment.  Not 
only  here,  but  all  along  the  rearward  lines  of  the  Allied 
Armies,  their  big,  wheeled  pigeon-cotes,  like  gipsy  wagons, 
and  their  attendants'  weirdly  camoufles  tents  dot  the  land- 
scape, while  the  birds  circle  in  airy  flight  overhead,  or  go 
soberly  enough  by  messenger  in  light  crates  to  the  trenches, 
where  they  are  released  with  dispatches  for  their  particular 
headquarters. 

Pozieres  crater  is  simply  a  huge,  funnel-shaped  hole  in 
the  ground,  its  white  sides  glistening  in  the  sunshine. 
Nothing  about  it  suggests  even  remotely  war  or  any  of 
war's  activities.  Yet  to  stand  at  the  edge  of  this  great 
crater  and  look  across  its  perhaps  three  hundred  feet  of 


104  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

mouth  and  sixty  or  seventy  of  deptH,  is  to  visualize,  in  a 
way,  the  entire  war.  Eor  a  year  or  more,  patient  human 
moles  burrowed  endlessly  in  the  saps,  and  hewed  from  the 
chalk  the  great  chambers  where  the  explosives  were  stored. 
Then,  the  pressure  of  a  button  somewhere  in  the  rear,  and 
the  year's  work  went  roaring  up  skyward  in  one  forty- 
thousandth  of  a  second.  Men,  guns,  horses,  the  key-position 
of  that  section  of  the  German  lines,  were  all  destroyed 
blindly,  irrevocably,  by  this  mechanical  device  that  worked 
without  personality  or  human  feeling. 

The  same  thing  transpired  at  Messines  Ridge,  where  the 
huge  mining  operations  that  required  almost  eighteen 
months  to  complete,  were  made  possible  by  the  expert  scien- 
tific knowledge  of  a  quiet,  modest,  genial  little  old  gentle- 
man who  never  had  an  unkind  thought  in  his  life.  I  found 
him  in  a  little  two-by-four  room  at  one  of  the  headquarters 
far  behind  the  lines,  humped  over  a  rough  kitchen-style 
table  littered  with  maps, and  many  bottles  of  colored  inks, 
preparing,  no  doubt,  for  a  fresh  blow  in  some  other  vital 
spot.  In  the  five  minutes  he  gave  me  we  talked — or  rather, 
he  talked,  and  I  listened  somewhat  uncomprehendingly — 
in  pure  geological  terms  of  Tertiary  underlays,  Jurassic 
formations,  alluvial  clays  and  the  like,  which  did  not  at  all 
correspond  to  the  France  I  know.  But  Major  Blank's 
knowledge  goes  deep  down  into  primitive  chaos  and  brings 
up  in  clear,  ordered  statements  those  indispensable  facts 
that  underlie  the  emotionless  efficiency  of  the  British  Army. 

Efficiency  also  marks  the  C.  L.  C,  or  Chinese  Labor  Camp, 


FARTHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND         105 

an  enormous  compound  fenced  off  by  barbed-wire  stockades 
about  ten  feet  high,  laid  out  in  wide,  regular  streets  at  right 
angles,  and  filled  with  barracks,  storehouses,  workshops,  a 
hospital,  headquarters  office,  finger-print  bureau,  and  so 
on.  Here  are  no  less  than  forty-five  thousand  sturdy 
Chi  Li  and  Shantung  laborers  who  release  an  equal  number 
of  Tommies  for  military  duty.  The  coolies  are  elaborately 
catalogued  and  graded  according  to  their  capabilities  and 
past  experience.  An  unskilled  laborer  receives  a  franc  a 
day,  plus  an  allotment  of  ten  dollars  Mexican  silver  (the 
current  coinage  in  coastal  China,  where  a  deal  of  it  is 
manufactured  from  raw  silver  by  the  enterprising  China- 
man) to  his  family  every  month.  Interpreters  receive  five 
francs  a  day,  with  a  monthly  allowance  of  sixty  dollars 
*^Mex"  to  their  families.  This  pay  is  net  to  the  workers, 
who  also  receive,  to  use  the  Army  term,  *^^subsistence'^ — 
better  and  much  more  plentiful  than  they  ever  had  at 
home :  ten  ounces  of  meat — an  unheard-of  luxury  for  most 
Chinese — eight  ounces  rice,  eight  ounces  bread,  eight 
ounces  fresh  vegetables,  bacon,  salt,  eight  ounces  flour,  and 
cigarettes  or  tobacco.  In  case  of  accident  resulting  in  par- 
tial disablement,  a  lump  sum  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars or  less,  depending  upon  the  injury,  is  paid  the  family ; 
in  case  of  death  or  total  disablement,  this  amount  is  three 
hundred  dollars,  ^^Mex."  The  working  day  is  ten  hours, 
and  the  general  system  much  the  same  as  that  successfully 
used  during  the  Boer  War  in  South  Africa. 

So  much  has  been  written  respecting  the  morals  of  the 


106  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

Chinese  in  general,  and  of  their  addiction  to  narcotics  in 
particular,  that  it  is  only  just  to  state  with  emphasis  that 
the  morals  of  this  coast  camp  in  Erance  are  excellent.  The 
worst  charge  the  canny  Scots  laird  in  command  conld  bring 
against  them  was  that  the  Chinese  are  notoriously  spend- 
thrift !  The  French  of  the  province  have  been  very  timid 
and  offish  toward  these  Mongolian  strangers,  and  nervous 
mothers  use  them  as  bogies  to  frighten  their  children  into 
obedience.  John  himself  seems  rather  to  enjoy  his  fear- 
some reputation,  grins,  minds  his  own  business,  and  main- 
tains good  order  and  decency  everywhere.  British  disci- 
pline no  doubt  has  a  mighty  influence  in  this  respect ;  so,  no 
doubt,  has  the  innate  solidity  of  the  Chinese  character. 
Liberty  outside  the  camp  is  carefully  restricted,  but  plenty 
of  entertainment  is  provided  within  bounds.  The  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  huts — ^think  of  a  Christian  Association  for  Confu- 
cians!— are  supplied  with  phonographs  and  moving  pic- 
tures :  the  Celestials  show  a  strong  preference  for  the  ele- 
mental humor  of  the  custard  pie  hero  of  the  half -mustache 
and  uncouth  feet. 

None  of  the  coolies  have  as  yet  been  ^^ost,'^  as  the  com- 
manding officer  put  it  neatly,  from  this  French  camp, 
though  one  morning  when  he  was  out  on  his  horse  he 
chanced  to  meet  a  small  group  who  had  simply  walked 
out  of  the  gang  with  which  they  were  working  and  begun 
wandering  about  the  lovely  French  countryside.  The  Colo- 
nel knew  they  had  no  business  to  be  where  they  were,  and 
reined  in  his  charger. 


PAETHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND         107 

"What  are  you  doing  out  here  ?'  he  demanded. 

One  of  the  Chinese  who  could  speak  a  little  English  jab- 
bered a  moment  with  his  companions,  and  then  turned 
back  to  the  officer  with  a  bland  smile  and  a  truly  Gilbertian 
answer : 

"Jus'  pickin'  a  few  buttehcups/'  he  said,  and  docilely 
turned  his  fellows  toward  their  work. 

Only  eleven  of  all  the  sixty  thousand  Chinese  used  in 
South  Africa  broke  bounds  for  good.  Long  afterward  the 
officer  who  now  commands  the  C.  L.  C.  in  France,  and  who 
was  then  a  junior  in  the  South  African  camp,  met  some  of 
them  in  the  Congo,  headed  eastward,  "walking  home  to 
China  r 

One  morning  we  were  detailed  to  inspect  a  training 
camp.  When  we  reached  it,  after  a  thirty-mile  ride  through 
the  country,  it  was  as  empty  and  desolate  as  a  deserted  vil- 
lage. Only  the  commandant  was  on  hand.  "Awfully  sorry 
you  chaps  had  your  ride  for  nothing,''  he  apologized.  "In- 
teresting show,  y'  know.  But  at  midnight  I  got  orders  to 
clean  up,  and  by  five  this  morning  I  had  the  whole  ten 
thousand  of  my  fellows  out  on  the  road.  See  anything  of 
'em  coming  down?" 

Had  we  seen  anything  of  them?  For  nearly  two  hours 
we  had  had  to  run  carefully,  through  an  unending  stream 
of  artillery,  transport  trains,  men  of  every  arm,  from 
Highlanders  wearing  the  dark  Gordon  plaid  to  lean,  swart 
Bengalese  cavalry  who  saluted  smartly  with  down-flung 
hand  as  we  passed.    Infantry  and  artillery,  engineers  and 


108  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

sappers,  staff  and  liorse  were  all  going  gaily  forward — to 
what?  They  did  not  know  at  the  moment.  Neither  did 
we,  until  some  time  afterward,  when  the  '^ig  pnsh'^  that 
finally  resulted  in  the  storming  and  capture  of  Passchen- 
daele  Ridge  was  announced. 

It  was  beautiful  to  watch,  this  efficient,  ordered  move- 
ment, "blind"  to  the  last  man,  but  perfectly  confident  and 
tremendously  impressive.  That  had  been  my  initial  im- 
pression of  the  British — ^their  orderly  coherence  and 
smooth  movement.  This  same  efficiency  is  everywhere — 
never  more  noticeable  than  in  the  work  of  those  unthanked 
gleaners,  the  Salvage  Corps,  whose  endless  toil  is  absorbing 
to  any  one  with  an  eye  for  detail.  The  Major  commanding 
a  great  salvage  and  ordnance  depot  at  one  of  the  Channel 
ports  was  so  delighted  in  my  interest  that  he  spared  me  not 
a  single  particular  of  the  system  by  which  he  was  saving 
thousands  of  lives  and  millions  of  money  for  the  Army. 
The  Salvage  Corps,  by  way  of  explanation,  is  a  general 
picker-up  and  recoverer  of  everything  dropped,  lost,  thrown 
away  or  shot  down  on  the  battle-field,  or  anywhere.  Care- 
fully it  sorts  the  gathered-up  debris,  and  puts  everything 
possible  into  use  again — at  that,  the  fiercely-fought  actions 
leave  behind  unnumbered  tons  of  materiel  that  is  never 
recovered. 

In  this  particular  depot  during  a  single  month — the  Ma- 
jor showed  me  his  report — ^nearly  eighty  thousand  mess-tins 
alone  had  been  brought  in,  cleaned,  put  in  perfect  condition, 
boiled  in  potash,  polished  and  stored  for  reissue.    Camp- 


FARTHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND  109 

kettles  by  the  hundred,  boilers  for  the  field-kitchens,  water- 
bottles  and  lanterns  to  an  amazing  total  had  been  gathered 
up,  put  through  the  same  process,  even  to  the  lanterns,  and 
stored  away  in  their  bins.  Nearly  five  thousand  boxes  of 
bandoliers  represented  the  month's  recovery  of  these  indis- 
pensable cartridge-belts.  As  for  the  rag-pickers,  they  had 
repacked  and  weighed  and  stored  almost  three  hundred  and 
forty-eight  tons  of  woolen  rags  alone,  to  say  nothing  of 
nineteen  tons  of  waste  paper  weighed  and  baled  and  sent 
home.  How  did  that  amount  of  paper  ever  get  to  the 
front  ?    The  Major  could  not  tell  me. 

The  two  most  interesting  things,  to  me,  going  on  in  the 
vast  establishment  both  concerned  footgear:  boots  and 
horseshoes.  Here  are  the  items,  as  they  stood  on  the  Ma- 
jor's record  of  the  animal  footwear — > 

New  loose  horseshoes  received  from  the  front,  sorted 

and  repacked  for  group,  pairs 8,600 

Partly  worn  horseshoes  sorted  and  issued,  pairs. ...    625 
Unserviceable  horseshoes  dispatched  to  England,  tons   497 
Rusty  horseshoe  nails  rumbled  and  made  fit  for 
use,  cwts 28.5 

Imagine!  Nearly  a  ton  and  a  half  of  rusty  horseshoe 
nails  recovered,  some  of  them  from  the  shoes  stripped  from 
dead  horses,  thrown  into  an  endlessly  turning  barrel  with 
a  few  bits  of  leather  to  polish  them  clean,  and  turned  and 
turned  and  turned  until  they  emerged  as  shiny  and  new  as 
if  they  had  never  been  near  the  front !  And  the  four  hun- 
dred and  ninety-seven  tons  of  useless  shoes  sent  back  to 


110  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

England  to  be  remade — think  of  the  number  of  reshod 
horses  that  means ! 

The  boots  and  shoes  for  humans  were  not  less  interest- 
ing. Tommy  can  not  fight  on  sore  feet.  As  soon  as  his 
soles  or  heels  wear  down  badly,  his  boots  are  turned  over 
to  the  Salvage  Corps,  which  also  picks  up  quantities  of  such 
equipment  in  the  trenches  and  on  the  field.  All  are 
brought  to  the  depot,  where  two  piles  are  made  of  them, 
those  fit  to  repair  and  reissue  and  those  condemned  as  use- 
less. The  shoe-shop  where  the  repairing  is  done  would 
warm  the  heart  of  an  American  manufacturer.  It  throbs 
and  roars  with  an  everlasting  clatter  and  din  of  thumping 
hammers  and  flashing  stitch ing-machines,  box-making  ma- 
chines, all  sorts  of  machines,  many  of  which,  I  was  in- 
formed, were  American.  The  operators — about  half  as 
many  women  as  men — never  looked  up.  They  banged 
away  as  if  the  life  of  the  whole  British  Empire  depended 
upon  each  individual's  doing  his  level  best  every  minute. 
The  speed,  the  efficiency,  the  absence  of  lost  motion  in  every 
way  was  a  revelation. 

The  condemned  boots  and  shoes  disappeared  so  fast  it 
took  a  little  looking  to  see  what  became  of  them.  At  a 
table  out  of  which  rose  a  sharp  vertical  knife,  a  seated  girl 
snatched  up  the  shoes  from  the  mountain  beside  her, 
slashed  sole  and  upper  apart,  and  threw  each  part  to  a 
different  side.  The  soles  quickly  went  into  a  vast  mixing 
bin  where,  with  the  addition  of  just  enough  broken  box- 
covers  and  other  useless  wood  to  start  them  burning,  they 


FAETHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND         111 

vanished  into  the  furnace  that  provides  power  for  the  whole 
establishment.  The  Major  did  not  quite  understand  when 
I  complimented  him  on  utilizing  everything  but  the  smell, 
and  suggested  that  it  really  didn't  matter !  The  uppers  of 
the  shoes,  in  the  hands  of  another  deft  young  woman  be- 
fore a  curving  knife  came  to  life  on  Tommy's  marching 
feet  as  neat,  well-oiled  shoestrings. 

Besides  these  peaceful  things,  the  Salvage  Corps  gathers 
shells  and  cartridges  galore.  In  that  one  month  it  had  col- 
lected, inspected  and  classified,  in  small  arms  ammunition 
alone,  ten  million  rounds,  picked  up  nearly  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds  of  empty  cartridge  shells,  and  had  ready 
for  reissue  almost  four  thousand  "tin  hats"  which  the  Ord- 
nance Department  fondly  designates  as  "shrapnel-proof" 
notwithstanding  the  vast  numbers  that  come  back — I  have 
one  myself — ^with  the  plain  evidence  that  head-armor  is 
not  proof,  whatever  its  name. 

The  colossal  warehouses  about  the  depot  compound  make 
the  vastest  department  store  in  the  world,  with  everything 
an  Army  needs  ready  for  instant  issue.  There  are  even  a 
few  feminine  frills,  for  the  female  auxiliaries — like  the 
nurses,  the  "Fanys"  (First  Aid  Nursing  Yeomanry),  the 
plucky  little  "Waacs"  (Woman's  Auxiliary  Army  Corps), 
and  the  W.  C.  B.'s  (the  Women's  Church  Brigade),  whose 
initials,  annoyingly  enough,  do  not  lend  themselves  as  a 
nickname — have  to  be  supplied. 

One  of  the  most  vital  of  these  units  is  the  "Waacs."  Re- 
cruited almost  entirely  from  the  women  of  the  wage-earn- 
/ 


112  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

ing  classes^  this  efficient  body  does  much  of  the  hard  and 
dirty  work — ^without  which  the  domestic  arrangements  of 
the  Army  would  suffer — such  as  scrubbing  floors,  cleaning 
house  in  hospitals  and  permanent  camps,  driving  motors 
for  special  purposes,  and  so  on.  When  they  first  appeared 
in  Erance  in  their  trim  brown  uniforms  of  short  skirts  and 
close-fitting  jackets,  cocky  little  hats  of  the  same  color, 
heavy  brown  woolen  stockings  and  low  shoes,  the  French 
unfortunately  did  not  understand  the  reason  for  their  ex- 
istence and  looked  very  much  askance.  The  English  Army 
keenly  resented  that  cruel  misunderstanding.  To  correct 
the  impression  as  far  as  possible,  orders  were  issued  that 
no  officer  or  civilian  should  speak  to  any  "Waac'^  under 
any  circumstances  except  on  official  business. 

Not  knowing  this,  I  blundered  into  an  impasse  one  after- 
noon at  the  door  of  a  headquarters  office.  My  Captain  had 
to  report,  and  left  me  standing  by  the  curb,  glad  to  stretch 
my  legs  while  he  was  inside.  A  moment  later  a  pretty  lit- 
tle "Waac"  came  rushing  out,  and  tried  to  crank  a  balky 
engine.  She  tugged  and  pulled  and  spun  her  motor,  and  it 
would  not  even  gasp.  I  stepped  over  and  asked  if  I  could 
not  crank  it  for  her.  A  passing  Frenchman  stopped  to 
watch  and  listen.  The  busy  '^Waac,'^  her  plump  face 
flushed  with  her  furious  endeavor,  gave  me  one  terrific 
stab  with  her  black  eyes,  said  never  a  word,  and  with  a  jerk 
that  nearly  tore  her  in  two,  started  her  engine.  Captain 
X emerged  just  in  time  to  see  the  little  comedy.    As  the 


Military  pigeon  house.  Putting  pigeon  in  basket  with  message 


Aviation  camp  (Marne).  Cartridge  belt  for  gatling  gun 
and  type  of  a  flying  chaser 


FARTHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND         113 

^*Waac'^  rounded  a  corner  on  two  wheels,  he  laughed — the 
only  time  I  ever  heard  a  genuine  laugh  come  from  his 
silent  lips. 

^'1  say,  you  know,  you  mustn't  speak  to  'em — it  isn't 
done,  you  know,"  and  he  told  me  the  story.  The  best  part 
of  it  is,  to  the  everlasting  credit  of  the  British  Expedition- 
ary Forces,  it  really  "isn't  done,"  and  the  blessed  little 
"Waacs"  are  as  jealous  of  their  lonely  pride  as  a  man  is  of 
his  D.  S.  0. 

The  "Fanys"  are  English  ladies,  many  of  them  young 
and  lovely  as  well  as  independent  financially;  charming, 
low-voiced,  clear-eyed,  courageous  girls  who  drive  like  pro- 
fessionals and  fear  nothing.  Not  a  few  of  them  turned 
their  own  luxurious  motors  into  ambulances,  which  they 
keep  in  trim  day  and  night  with  their  own  competent 
hands.  While  we  were  having  tea  at  their  headquarters,  a 
"Fany"  came  in,  and  refused  prettily  to  shake  our  hands 
when  her  own  bore  clear  evidence  of  having  just  been  in 
the  tool-box  and  greasepot.  But  she  was  so  tired  and  thirsty 
she  had  to  have  her  tea  before  "cleaning  myself,  if  you 
don't  mind!"  The  "Fanys'"  work  is  largely  in  the  coast 
towns  behind  the  front,  where  they  respond  to  emergency 
calls,  relieving  the  hard-pressed  Army  Medical  Corps  of  a 
great  deal  of  necessary  and  often  very  trying  and  danger- 
ous work.  When  we  arrived  at  their  hut  an  emissary  of 
King  Albert  I  of  Belgium — a  Count  whose  name  I  failed 
to  catch — was  conveying  the  personal  thanks  of  His  Majesty 


114  .WITH   THREE   AEMIES 

to  Mrs.  Commanding  Officer  for  the  bravery  and  skill  of 
her  young  ladies  the  night  before,  during  an  air  raid  which 
killed  nearly  a  score  of  Belgian  refugees. 

A  badly  wounded  man ;  special  apparatus  needed  immedi- 
ately for  laboratory  work  to  help  bring  him  back  from  the 
shadows ;  two  little  empty  cartridge  shells,  a  bit  of  cast-off 
wire,  a  tomato  can;  some  hasty  ingenuity,  a  little  cotton 
wicking,  some  alcohol — and  within  a  few  weeks  the  badly 
wounded  man  trudging  cheerily  back  to  the  front,  very 
little  the  worse  for  the  shrapnel  splinter  on  which  he  had 
almost  ^%one  west." 

How  simple  it  sounds,  that  miniature  Bunsen  burner, 
when  one  tells  of  it  afterward!  But  how  vital  it  was  to 
wounded  Tommy  in  his  agony  that  the  doctor  had  inventive 
genius  and  quick  wit,  skilled  hands  and  the  ability  to 
utilize  apparently  useless  things.  Again  and  again,  in  oper- 
ating room  and  laboratory,  in  every  branch  of  the  hospital 
work,  this  cool,  unhurried,  self-sufficient  British  efficiency 
has  made  itself  felt  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  war. 
The  particular  invention  referred  to  was  shown  me  at  a 
Canadian  base  hospital  on  the  coast,  where  the  clean  salt 
air  blows  freely  through  every  ward  and  puts  life  into  the 
pale  and  wasted  fellows  on  the  endless  rows  'of  white  cots. 

The  morning  Captain  X started  me  off  with  a  laconic 

*^see  a  hospital 's  morning,''  I  thought  we  were  going  to  the 
first  line.  "When  we  finally  pulled  up  in  a.  big  compound, 
flanked  with  roomy  buildings  on  all  sides,  I  was  disap- 


FAETHER   ALONG— AND   BEHIND         115 

pointed,  for  we  were  in  the  outskirts  of  a  large  city,  and 
I  knew  that  here  was  a  base  hospital  only.  But  perhaps 
the  War  Office  in  London  knew  better  than  I  that  the  first 
line  hospitals  I  had  asked  to  see  would  not  be  either  so 
interesting  or  so  intelligible  to  me,  besides  being  fuller  of 
suffering  and  less  suited  to  description.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  do  but  make  the  best  of  it,  so,  by  grace  of  special 
permission,  I  went  through  ward  after  ward  and  watched 
the  work  going  on.  And  what  a  place  it  was  for  interest- 
ing and  unusual  detail !  Here  men  have  had  faces  rebuilt 
out  of  horrors,  noses  manufactured  and  grown  to  order, 
hopeless  limbs  saved  and  made  good  as  new;  and  what 
hasn't  been  done  to  the  long-suffering  human  insides — ! 
The  good  doctors  have  kept  a  record  that  shows  less  than 
one-half  of  one  per  cent,  of  their  surgical  cases  die;  only 
.54  of  1%  of  all  cases,  or,  2.5%  less  than  hospital  mortality 
in  civil  life. 

Besides  the  Canadians,  who  constitute  practically  all  the 
cases  regularly  handled  here,  a  short  row  of  Portuguese, 
wounded  in  the  sector  to  which  this  hospital  belongs, 
showed  swart  but  content  among  their  fairer  complexioned 
mates.  They  were  little  fellows  mostly,  hardly  more  than 
sturdy  boys,  but  in  their  faces  was  a  look  never  seen  in  the 
eyes  of  normal  boys  in  time  of  peace.  It  is  in  every  face, 
not  only  in  this  hospital,  but  wherever  wounded  men  are 
gathered,  whatever  their  nationality:  a  look  of  blank  but 
utter  content  that  has  nothing  of  resignation  about  it, 
nothing  of  even  eagerness  to  be  well — simply  content.   It 


116  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

is  a  look  that  at  iirst  hurts  the  beholder.  What  has  robbed 
these  men  of  their  natural,  human  attitude  toward  recovery 
and  life?  Do  ihej  not  wish  to  recover?  Of  course;  but 
while  they  have  the  opportunity  to  lie  perfectly  still  in  a 
clean  bed,  free  of  all  "cooties"  and  mud  and  damp ;  while 
they  can  have  some  one  feed  them  regularly  with  far  nicer 
things  than  the  Army  mess-tins  ever  disclose;  while  they 
have  privileges  unnumbered  and  no  hard,  dirty  or  danger- 
ous work  to  do,  they  mean  to  enjoy  it  all  to  the  limit.  So 
they  look  somewhat  as  those  blind  from  birth  look :  placid, 
content,  neither  hoping  nor  fearing,  living  for  the  blessed 
peace  and  fulness  of  the  moment. 

As  we  came  back  through  the  hospital  laboratory,  I 
paused  a  moment  to  watch  the  improviser  of  the  miniature 
hot-flame  burner  experimenting  with  some  blobs  of  color 
on  pieces  of  glass.  Without  looking  up,  he  nodded  over  his 
work  and  said  dryly  he  hoped  somebody  would  some  day 
have  brains  enough  to  catch  that  particular  germ,  or  what- 
ever it  was  he  was  trying  to  isolate.  It  was  his  luncheon 
hour,  but  half  the  time  he  forgets  to  eat,  and  has  to  be 
dragged  out  of  his  steaming,  smelly,  multi-colored  "lab," 
where  efficiency  is  the  one  and  only  test,  human  life  the 
only  reward  that  counts. 

And  there  in  that  room,  I  think,  is  the  kejrnote  of  Brit- 
ain's part  in  the  war,  there  the  reason  for  her  success — the 
impulse  to  efficiency,  the  regard  for  humanity,  the  recogni- 
tion of  principle  as  the  principal  thing. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


HEROIC  BELGIUM 


When"  Kature  set  strong  mountain  barriers  between 
France  and  her  eastern  neighbors,  she  made  one  grievous 
mistake:  she  left  a  wide  pathway  around  to  the  north — 
the  Low  Countries.  But  was  it  a  mistake?  It  has  been 
desperately  hard  on  France,  hard  on  the  heroic  little  Low 
Countries;  but  it  has  been  of  inestimable  value  to  the  sav- 
ages and  barbarians  to  the  east.  It  has  given  them  en- 
trance to  civilization  from  time  to  time ;  and  always,  up  to 
the  present,  they  have  become  civilized  when  they  came 
through  and  learned  what  civilization  meant.  To-day  they 
have  broken  through  again;  the  tumultuous  raids  of  the 
past  have  been  repeated  in  this  twentieth  century ;  it  is  the 
business  not  only  of  civilized  Europe  but  of  the  United 
States  also — our  lusiness! — to  see  that  history  repeats 
itself,  that  once  more  the  barbarians  become  civilized — this 
time  clear  back  to  the  fountainhead,  so  there  will  be  no 
barbarians  left  to  break  through  in  the  future. 

All  through  the  centuries — ^nineteen  of  them — fierce 
fighting  raged  throughout  the  Low  Countries.  Sometimes 
it  was  merely  to  force  a  passage  through  them  to  larger 
fields ;  often  it  was  for  possession  of  the  pathway  itself,  for 
it  has  always  been  a  rich  and  tempting  bait  to  the  spoiler. 

117 


118  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

A  brave  and  gallant  people  have  always  inhabited  this 
region — Caesar  found  that  out  before  he  penned  the  often- 
quoted  line  in  his  Gallic  War,  ''horum  omnium  fortissimi 
sunt  helgae — of  all  these  the  bravest  are  the  Belgians.'' 
With  the  Roman  conquest,  and  subsequent  civilization  of 
the  stalwart  helgm,  strong  fortresses  were  built  along  the 
Rhine  border  to  protect  the  new  Roman  province  of  Gallia 
Belgica;  but  the  forts  merely  delayed  instead  of  prevented 
the  barbarian  incursions.  Again  and  again  was  the  region 
invaded,  and  by  the  end  of  the  turbulent  fifth  century — a 
time  when  the  world  must  have  seemed  to  the  civilization 
of  the  moment  going  all  to  smash  in  the  same  way  it  seemed 
to  us  of  1914  to  be  going — all  that  is  now  Belgium  was  in 
the  lusty  hands  of  the  Franks. 

In  their  turn  they  became  civilized.  Christianized,  and 
fused  with  the  Gallo-Romans ;  but  the  fighting  to  and  fro, 
the  bitter  periods  of  foreign  domination,  the  terrible  do- 
mestic quarrels  and  general  internecine  warfare  went  right 
on.  And  never,  until  1831,  when  the  Great  Powers  made 
a  solemn  treaty,  decreeing  Belgium  an  independent,  con- 
stitutional neutral  State,  obligated  to  defend  its  neutrality, 
had  the  brave  little  country  a  chance  to  develop  its  destiny 
in  peace. 

That  treaty  of  1831  was  the  famous  ^^scrap  of  paper" 
which  Germany,  to  her  eternal  infamy  and  anathema,  tore 
up  and  repudiated  in  1914,  against  the  protests  of  Belgium 
herself,  and  of  France  and  England,  who  also  had  signed 
it,  and  who  are  to-day  defending  it  with  their  lives.  In  the 


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PROCLAMATION" 

In  the  future  the  inhabitants  of  places  situated  near 
railways  and  telegraph  lines  which  have  been  destroyed 
will  be  punished  without  mercy  (whether  they  are  guilty 
of  this  destruction  or  not).  For  this  purpose,  hostages 
have  been  taken  in  all  places  in  the  vicinity  of  railways 
in  danger  of  similar  attacks;  and  at  the  first  attempt  to 
destroy  any  railway,  telegraph,  or  telephone  line,  they  will 
be  shot  immediately.  The  Governor, 

Von  Der  Goltz. 

Brussels,  5th  October,  1914. 


HEROIC    BELGIUM  119 

eighty-four  years  of  peace  that  intervened  between  its  sig- 
nature and  its  rupture,  Belgium  made  a  record  of  indus- 
trial, agricultural  and  political  progress  that  constitutes 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  chapters  of  modern  history. 

It  is  a  tiny  country,  physically,  so  little  Uncle  Sam  could 
drop  it  into  one  waistcoat  pocket  and  not  know  he  had  it ! 
With  an  area  of  only  11,373  square  miles — 800  square 
miles  smaller  than  our  own  State  of  Maryland — it  had  a 
population  before  the  war  of  more  than  seven  millions :  the 
densest  population,  relatively,  of  any  country  in  Europe. 
In  that  area,  so  congested,  there  existed  a  network  of  more 
than  six  thousand  miles  of  highroads,  all  either  paved  or 
macadamized,  as  compared  with  less  than  two  thousand  in 
1830 ;  1,360  miles  of  waterways,  including  both  rivers  and 
canals;  2,900  miles  of  railways,  and  steam  and  electric 
trams  and  narrow-gauge  railways  everywhere.  We  always 
think  of  Belgium  as  pre-eminently  a  manufacturing  coun- 
try, and  she  was,  with  imports  and  exports  that  more  than 
trebled  since  1870;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it 
was  also  a  farming  country  with  a  full  third  of  its  popula- 
tion engaged  in  agriculture  upon  six  and  a  half  million 
acres  of  the  most  intensively  cultivated  land  imaginable. 
But  while  these  frugal,  industrious,  wide-awake  people  were 
busy  developing  their  resources  and  building  up  a  wonder- 
ful structure  of  enterprise  and  commerce,  Germany  was 
gathering  her  vast  resources  against  the  time  when,  as 
Professor  Albert  Bushnell  Hart  so  aptly  put  it,  the  Prus- 
sian Guards  would  go  "^'gaily  goose-stepping  over  Belgium !" 


120  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

To-day  all  there  is  left  of  free  Belgium  is  a  narrow 
strip  in  the  west.  This  unconquered  section  reaches  from 
just  below  Nieuport  to  the  French  border,  a  strip  about 
the  size  of  Greater  ISTew  York,  containing  only  one  real 
city,  Furnes,  and  a  few  scattered  hamlets,  all  more  or  less 
scarred  by  long-distance  bombardment  or  by  the  bombs 
dropped  on  them  in  the  continual  air  raids.  The  principal 
outstanding  features  of  this  plain  of  Flanders,  with  its 
slow,  placid  streams  between  endless  bordering  lines  of 
poplars,  its  quaint,  quiet  villages  cuddling  under  their  full 
red  tiles  or  thatch,  and  its  charming  country  houses  half 
hidden  in  gardens,  are,  or  rather,  were,  church  spires  and 
windmills.  What  a  part  in  the  early  fighting  those  sleepy- 
looking  windmills  played !  For  a  year  or  more  nobody  had 
time  to  notice  that  whether  there  was  a  breeze  or  not,  their 
gaunt  and  creaking  arms  moved  every  now  and  then — ten 
degrees  right;  stop;  three  degrees  back;  stop;  twenty  de- 
grees right ;  and  so  on.  And  then  they  caught  a  spy — ^mov- 
ing one — ^betraying  Belgium  in  regular  code.  Overnight  the 
mortality  among  windmill  spies  jumped  one  hundred  per 
cent.,  and  the  great  arms  moved  no  more ! 

The  Belgian  Government  is  still  quartered  in  France, 
and  the  rendezvous  for  all  intending  visitors  to  the  front 
is  a  certain  city  in  the  British  zone.  At  the  Military  Con- 
trol established  at  the  exit  from  the  station,  I  was  waiting 
in  line,  behind  a  long  string  of  returning  soldiers,  towns- 
folk and  peasants  to  have  my  papers  examined,  when  a 


HEEOIC    BELGIUM  121 

hearty,  Husky,  radiantly  good-humored  voice  the  other  side 
of  the  wicket  exclaimed :  "Say,  ain't  you  an  American  ?" 

I  looked  up  quickly.  Facing  me  were  two  Belgian  officers, 
one  a  Major  of  the  General  Staff,  the  other  a  Surgeon- 
Captain.  The  Major  was  small,  lean,  nervous,  deeply  red- 
dened of  face  hy  constant  exposure  to  the  wind  and  sun; 
the  Captain  a  very  mountain  of  a  man,  six  feet  and  more 
tall,  gray-eyed,  big-mouthed,  his  sunburnt  face  wrinkled 
all  over  with  the  merry  lines  of  optimism  and  good  humor. 
He  grasped  the  iron  bars  of  the  gateway  in  one  of  his  huge 
hands — and  the  officials  looked  up  in  consternation  as  he 
unintentionally  almost  shook  the  structure  to  pieces.  He 
made  me  think  of  a  Saint  Bernard  that  had  "grown  enough 
but  not  grown  up.^'  But  his  good  humor  was  infectious. 
I  laughed,  the  Major — ^to  whom  conducting  all  sorts  of 
persons  over  the  front  was  an  ancient  tale  largely  without 
savor — laughed ;  even  the  annoyed  Control  officials  laughed. 
So  did  the  soldiers  and  citizens  as  they  let  me  slip  through 
and  shake  hands  with  my  new  friends. 

"Gee!"  remarked  the  Captain,  releasing  the  pulp  that 
had  been  my  perfectly  good  hand.  "I  sure  am  glad  to  see 
a  real  American  again !  I've  only  been  away  from  Norway 
two  years,  but  it  seems  like  an  age.  You're  goin'  to  have 
the  time  of  your  life  up  here  if  we  can  give  it  to  you !" 

Norivay!  And  I  had  thought  him  a  Belgian.  Where  and 
how  had  he  learned  Americanese,  and  slang?  I  asked  him. 

"Norway,  Mich,!"  retorted  the  Captain,  abbreviating  the 


122  WITH    THEEE    ARMIES 

name  of  the  State.  "Some  town,  too,  believe  me!  Been 
practising  there  for  twenty  years.  I  didn't  want  to  come 
over — but,  gee,  what  could  I  do  ?  I'm  a  Belgian,  all  right, 
all  right ;  but  now — say,  I'm  two-thirds  American,  at  least. 
Wish  I  hadn't  come  over  and  got  into  this  dam'  scrap.  It's 
making  me  thin  as  the  dickens !" 

Major  L and  I  smiled  at  each  other,  while  the  Cap- 
tain prattled  on  cheerily,  mixing  his  three  languages  with 
delightful  inconsequence,  sometimes  beginning  a  sentence 
in  English,  ending  in  Flemish,  and  sandwiching  in  the 
official  Erench  for  good  measure.  Outside  waited  a  Staff 
motor.  As  we  rolled  along,  the  Major  explained  in  his 
beautiful  French  that  I  was  to  be  quartered  in  the  maritime 
railway  station  hotel,  so  familiar  to  millions  of  passengers 
from  France  to  England  in  other  days. 

"The  hoches  come  over  every  moonlight  night  and  try  to 
bomb  the  station  and  the  docks  and  ships,"  he  explained 
cheerfully,  "but  they  haven't  hit  it  yet,  and  it's  really  about 
the  safest  place  you  could  be.  If  there  is  an  dlerte,  a  bell- 
boy will  warn  you,  and  you  can  go  down  into  the  cellar  if 
you  like." 

I  had  promised  myself  some  sensations  at  the  front,  and 
here  was  one  miles  behind  it ! 

Throwing  my  window  on  the  top  floor  wide  open,  I 
looked  out  on  a  vivid  picture  brought  about  by  the  war. 
Oh,  those  sporting  English!  In  a  shallow  pond  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  long  and  from  twenty-five  to  a  hundred 
yards  wide,  a  dozen  of  them  were  swimming  and  playing 


HEROIC    BELGIUM  123 

like  young  seals,  while  two  four-oared,  two  pair-oared  and 
two  single-scull  gigs  were  paddling  about.  Overhead  cir- 
cled a  Belgian  hydroaeroplane.  Suddenly,  with  a  roaring 
hum,  the  avion  swooped  right  down  among  them,  frighten- 
ing away  the  ducks  feeding  about  the  edges,  but  not  the 
Englishmen.  It  flew  fifty  yards  a  foot  or  two  above  the 
water,  and  dropped  gently  in  without  a  splash  or  ripple, 
turned  easily,  and  stormed  along  in  a  shower  of  spray  to 
its  hangar,  where  waiting  mechanics,  in  the  water  to  their 
waists,  seized  and  drew  it  inside.  "While  this  was  going  on, 
a  combination  of  English,  Canadian,  Australian  and  High- 
land troops  in  full  kit  were  plodding  along  the  seaward 
edge  of  the  pond  on  their  way  to  the  distant  trenches,  and 
French  children  were  playing  about  on  the  levees  between 
pond  and  road  and  the  sea,  whose  dull  roar  was  very 
soothing. 

Meantime  the  moon  came  slowly  up.  It  was  nearly  full, 
and  the  skies  cloudless.  Not  a  breath  of  air  stirred  as  it 
climbed  the  heavens — an  ideal  night  for  a  raid.  About 
five  hours  later  the  raid  came,  the  station  was  aimed  at, 
and  the  bombs,  as  usual,  went  far  astray,  most  of  them 
landing  in  open  fields  and  untenanted  streets. 

Under  the  guidance  of  the  Major,  who  proved  the  most 
fascinating  of  ciceroni,  I  was  hurled  around  melancholy 
Belgium — all  there  is  left  of  it — slammed  to  and  fro, 
hither  and  yon,  in  a  motor  whose  merciless  chauffeur 
scorned  anything  as  speed  that  did  not  send  the  needle 
trembling  up  around  seventy  or  eighty  kilometers  an  hour. 


124  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

TrajBSc  was  no  obstacle.  Trucks,  guns,  soldiers — ^he  passed 
them  all  so  close  a  knifeblade  would  have  filled  the  gap 
between.  Many  a  time  in  the  dusk  on  our  way  back  to  my 
dangerous  hostelry,  a  shower  of  tiny  sparks  flew  up  from 
the  whirling  of  our  steel-studded  tires  upon  the  macadam- 
ized road.  And  once,  in  inky  darkness  and  drizzling  rain, 
running  without  headlights  at  that  eighty-kilometer  pace, 
we  covered  a  greasy,  slippery  stretch  of  new-made  roadway 
by  turning  completely  around  and  skidding  over  it  stern- 
foremost  on  to  the  macadam.  The  chauffeur  swore  softly, 
slowed  for  just  long  enough  to  regain  control  and  turn 
around,  and  pelted  off  again  without  so  much  as  giving  a 
backward  glance  to  see  if  the  Major  and  I  had  not  been 
flung  out  by  the  terrific  swing.  No  cup-race  could  hold  any 
terrors  for  that  twenty-year-old  soldier-driver,  who  three 
years  before  had  been  in  one  of  the  Belgian  universities, 
and  whose  blond  good  looks  and  boyish  manners  com- 
pletely belied  his  utter  lack  of  nerves  and  his  daredevil 
performances,  day  and  night,  with  that  car. 

Seven  o'clock  the  morning  after  my  arrival  saw  us  on  the 
road,  headed  north,  and  never  a  more  inspiriting  picture 
unreeled  itself  than  the  one  spread  before  us  as  we  flew 
along  that  jammed  and  sweating  main  road  beside  the 
canal,  of  which  mention  has  already  been  made  in  describ- 
ing the  rear  of  the  British  zone  of  operations.  And  pres- 
ently we  were  in  Gravelines — moated,  massively  fortified, 
medieval  Gravelines — as  picturesque  a  fortress  of  its  sort 
as  Carcassonne  of  the  south  is  of  its.    Beyond  lay  the  Bel- 


HEROIC    BELGIUM  125 

gian  border,  with  the  road  flying  out  ahead  of  us  straight  as 
a  string  for  miles.  The  driver  stepped  on  his  accelerator, 
and  we  finished  the  forty-five  kilometers  from  our  starting 
point  to  Furnes,  including  all  slow-downs  for  traffic  in 
the  numerous  towns  and  villages  and  the  semi-circular 
twist  through  Gravelines,  in  exactly  forty  minutes. 

Fumes!  How  shall  I  describe  that  silent,  motion- 
less, emotionless  ghost  of  a  city?  How  conjure  up  the 
picture  it  made  that  brilliant  September  morning  as  our 
car  halted,  panting  and  dust-covered,  in  the  main  square, 
with  the  tall,  high-gabled  church  on  one  side,  Spanish 
House  at  one  angle,  the  town  hall  near  the  church  and  all 
about  lofty,  step-gabled  houses  and  shops  with  faces  such 
as  one  sees  mostly  in  dreams  ?  Here  was  surely  the  abode 
of  peace.  In  this  market  square  only  such  a  little  time  be- 
fore the  black-smocked  men  sat  behind  their  stalls  with 
black-frocked  women  wearing  white  caps  and  wooden  shoes. 
Here  a  little  later  King  Albert  gathered  one  of  his  heroic 
regiments  in  hollow  square  while  he  decorated  its  colors 
with  the  insignia  of  heroism.  And  now  there  are  shell- 
holes  through  the  roof  of  the  church  and  the  elaborate 
carven  porch  of  the  town  hall.  Many  a  house  is  shattered 
within,  and  unsafe  to  explore.  The  citizens  have  most  of 
them  vanished,  blown  to  every  wind  of  heaven,  and  between 
the  smooth-worn  stones  of  the  cobbled  streets  grass  has 
begun  to  sprout  right  cheerily.  Yet,  still  capable  of  liv- 
ing again  as  it  has  lived  so  many  hundreds  of  years  already. 
Fumes  waits — simply  waits. 


126  WITH   THEEE    AEMIES 

But  with  so  much  to  see,  Major  L gave  me  a  scant 

opportunity  to  explore  lovely  old  Furnes,  and  we  sped  on 
out  into  the  open.  The  region  utterly  blasted  and  destroyed 
does  not  begin  until  the  vicinity  of  Pervyse  is  reached. 
What  a  series  of  towns !  Pervyse,  Oude  and  Nieu  Cappelle, 
Lampernisse,  Caeskerke,  Avecappelle,  Oostkerke,  Eams- 
cappelle  and  their  neighbors,  almost  nothing  but  stark 
ruin.  The  church  at  Loo,  with  its  crucified  Christ  hurled 
from  the  wall  full  length  into  the  broken  stone  that  fills 
the  nave;  the  one  at  Lampernisse,  with  only  half  a  dozen 
of  its  inner  arches  still  erect;  the  ghastly  silhouette  of 
Ramscappelle,  ragged  against  the  sky,  and  its  railroad  sta- 
tion, shot  into  a  sieve,  with  a  bullet-pierced  locomotive 
half-buried  in  debris  that  for  three  years  has  been  un- 
touched; that  school  for  little  girls,  with  a  shell-hole 
through  the  fagade  and  a  tumbled  heap  of  plaster  and 
wood-work  over  the  deserted  benches — and  the  chalk  still 
lying  on  the  dusty  ledge  of  the  big  blackboard;  the  vast 
railroad  yards  at  Adinkerke,  reconstructed  and  humming 
with  the  business  of  war ;  all  this  and  more  came  into  that 
first  day  of  vivid  impressions  and  furious  driving. 

What  a  people  these  kindly  Belgians  are !  They  think 
nothing  of  driving  a  visitor  at  a  deadly  pace  twenty  miles 
for  luncheon  and  forty  for  a  bed  day  after  day,  no  matter 

what  the  weather.    Major  L took  me  from  the  front  all 

the  way  back  to  Dunquerque  for  luncheon,  and  afterward 
slammed  me  back  to  the  front  again  so  fast  it  took  an  hour 
for  my  breath  to  catch  up  with  me  when  the  car  stopped 


Mr.  Riggs— second  from  the  left— and  Belgian  soldiers 
just  from  the  trenches 


The  Calvary  at  Crapcaumesonil 


Official  Belgian  photograph^ 

Inundated  section  of  No  Man's  Land  between  Belgium  and  German 
trenches  near  Dixmude.   The  sentry  is  a  Belgian 


First  line  of  defense  before  the  village  of  Ramscappelle 


HEEOIC   BELGIUM  127 

and  hid  behind  a  ruined  farmhouse.  Along  a  very  much 
battered  road  we  tramped,  coming  at  last  to  a  spot  where  it 
simply  vanished  in  a  refuse  heap.  ''Fighting  here,"  the 
Major  said.  Around  us  the  swampy-looking  fields  full  of 
rank  grass  and  weeds  were  pitted  by  shells,  some  of  which 
had  fallen  only  that  morning,  and  dotted  by  the  ruins  of 
a  few  isolated  farmhouses  and  outbuildings. 

We  struck  out  across  a  field,  on  a  path  between  screens  of 
ragged  burlap  camouflage  and  weird  combinations  of  wat- 
tles and  dried  grass,  twisting  around  hummocks  and  dodg- 
ing shell-holes,  until  a  very  large  and  shattered  stone  farm- 
house blocked  the  way.    Major  L stopped  for  a  moment 

to  speak  with  another  officer,  and  I  wandered  on  into  a  roof- 
less bay  of  the  house.  A  bayonet  was  thrust  at  my  chest, 
and  a  surly-voiced  sentry  demanded  something  in  Flemish. 
I  backed  away  a  few  inches.  The  shining  steel  kept  right 
after  me;  pressed  a  little  harder  against  my  coat,  in  fact. 
My  reply  in  French  failed  to  satisfy  the  sentry,  who  either 
could  not  or  would  not  understand.  Things  looked  squally 
for  a  moment.  At  the  front  they  have  a  habit  of  dealing  in 
summary  fashion  with  men  in  civilian  dress  who  do  not  in- 
stantly account  for  themselves — and  the  finger  snuggled 
against  that  Mauser's  delicate  trigger  looked  very  nervous 
to  me! 

In  came  Major  L .  Without  moving  a  muscle,  the  sen- 
try demanded  sharply  of  him  the  password,  his  business  and 
papers.  The  Major  replied  curtly,  ordered  him  off,  and 
moved  toward  me.    The  loyal  fellow  did  not  budge.    He 


128  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

merely  raised  his  voice.  The  Major  produced  his  papers 
and  again  ordered  the  sentry  to  go  back  to  his  post.  While 
the  argument  waxed  warm,  a  young  Lieutenant  suddenly 
appeared,  hailed  the  Major,  whom  he  fortunately  happened 
to  know,  vouched  for  him  to  the  sentry,  and  released  us. 

It  seemed  a  very  strange  proceeding  until  after  a  few 
words  in  Flemish  between  my  Major  and  the  Lieutenant, 
I  was  ceremoniously  ushered  up  a  perpendicular  iron  lad- 
der bolted  to  the  reinforced  chimney,  and  found  at  the  top, 
inside  a  yawning  shell-hole,  an  artillery  observation  post. 
The  fact  that  at  any  moment  the  Germans  might  send  over 
a  shell  and  blow  the  post  into  bits  had  no  effect  upon  the 
observer's  nerves,  and  he  looked  every  inch  the  stolid 
Fleming.  But  when  the  moon  made  weird  shadows 
and  the  ghosts  of  the  Belgian  and  German  dead  gibbered 
above  the  marsh;  when  the  rickety  old  hoiise  creaked  and 
swayed,  and  unimaginable  noises  came  from  nowhere — 
^'^Ugh  V'  he  exclaimed,  ''mon  Dieu,  mais  c'est  lugvhre,  tres, 
tres  lugubre!" 

Sitting  down  before  the  graduated  scale  upon  which  his 
powerful  glasses  were  mounted,  I  looked  straight  into  the 
loclie  lines  in  Dixmude,  barely  visible  with  the  naked  eye 
as  a  thin,  grayish-brown  shadow  among  the  woods  on  the 
other  side  of  the  region  the  Belgians  had  flooded  by  cutting 
the  sluices  and  dykes  and  letting  the  Yser  run  over  it.  But 
with  the  glass !  There  was  the  blasted  wreck  of  the  church, 
the  gaunt  house  walls,  the  tortured  trees  in  the  streets  and 
between  town  and  river-bank.    There  were  the  Huns  them- 


HEKOIC   BELGIUM  129 

selves,  barely  distinguishable  figures  in  uniforms  so  nearly 
the  color  of  the  background  they  could  be  seen  only  when 
they  moved,  which  they  did  freely.  In  the  foreground  the 
Yser  and  its  overflow  blotted  out  everything,  concealing 
with  its  muddy  waters  the  now  well-washed  bones  of  the 
thousands,  Belgians,  British  and  French,  as  well  as  their 
German  adversaries,  who  had  fallen  in  the  desperate  fight- 
ing that  has  raged  all  over  the  inundated  region,  where,  if 
a  man  is  wounded  and  drops  into  the  numbing  cold  water 
and  slimy,  viscous  clay,  he  has  small  chance  of  emerging 
alive.  In  fact,  the  medieval  horrors  of  storming  a  city 
across  its  moat  were  nothing  to  fighting  through  a  moat 
Buch  as  this,  miles  long  and  six  hundred  yards  wide ! 

That  night,  as  we  dined  in  the  railroad  station  restau- 
rant, the  hoche  came  flying  over  again  on  his  moonlight 
pranks,  and  aimed  a  bomb  or  two  at  us.  One  of  them,  alas, 
fell  squarely  upon  a  car  full  of  Belgian  permissionaires  go- 
ing gaily  off  to  Paris  for  a  ten-day  visit.  When  the 
frightful  crash  was  over,  twenty-two  of  them  lay  dead,  and 
thirty-seven  others  were  desperately  wounded.  Not  a  man 
in  the  car  escaped  some  injury,  and  twenty-eight  of  them 
died  before  morning. 

We  heard  the  dlerte  from  the  siren,  the  clamor  of  the 
barrage  firing,  then  the  wicked  detonation  of  the  bombs. 
Nobody  stirred,  and  dinner  proceeded  without  comment. 
But  just  before  we  were  ready  to  leave,  a  white-faced  mes- 
senger searched  the  dining-room,  and  came  straight  to  our 
table. 


130  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

"Captain!"  he  exclaimed,  then  lowered  his  voice  and 
whispered  an  order. 

Captain-Doctor  B turned  to  me  with  an  apologetic 

smile  and  tried  to  make  light  of  what  I  knew  was  a  serious 
call. 

"Now,  ain't  that  too  bad !  Some  boob  over  in  my  shop's 
gone  an'  got  the  colic  and  he  wants  me — ^just  when  we  were 
having  such  a  splendid  time !" 

"Camouflage,  Doc !"  I  smiled  back  at  him.  "Tell  me  the 
truth.  Anybody  hit?" 

For  a  second  he  hesitated,  his  big  hand  crushing  the  edge 
of  the  table;  then  his  hatred  for  the  hoche  flared  up  in  the 
most  violently  profane  cry  I  ever  heard. 

"Yes !    A  whole  ear  full— damn  him !  Damn  Mm!" 

He  groped  his  way  heavily  out,  brushing  the  diners  aside 
as  if  they  had  been  children,  himself  whimpering  like  a 
child: 

''Oh,  mes  pauvres  enfants!  Mes  pauvres  enfantsi  Oh, 
my  poor  children  I  My  poor  children !" 


CHAPTER   IX 

OF  ALL  THESE  THE  BRAVEST  ARE  THE  BELGIANS 

Major  L took  me  to  the  scene  next  morning.    The 

bomb  had  fallen  on  the  car  not  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from 
where  we  dined.  Already  the  tracklayers  had  filled  up  the 
big  hole^  relaid  the  rails,  burned  the  fragments  of  the  de- 
stroyed car  and  put  the  other  derailed  ones  back  upon  the 
track  again.  As  our  motor  halted  to  give  us  a  good  look, 
our  chauffeur  suddenly  shivered  and  crossed  himself.  My 
eyes  followed  his.  The  damage  had  been  repaired.  But 
the  stone  wall  beside  the  track — ! 

Being  slammed  around  the  unsubmerged  tenth  of  Bel- 
gium was  all  very  well,  but  it  was  not  securing  me  the  audi- 
ence with  Her  Majesty  Queen  Elizabeth,  whose  results  I  had 
rashly  promised  an  American  magazine.  The  interview 
had  been  requested  through  the  usual  channels,  and  all  the 
necessary  formalities  observed.  I  knew  we  were  not  many 
miles  from  the  little  country  town  where  the  royal  residence 
has  been  made  for  months.  I  knew  also  that  no  pomp  or 
flummery  characterized  the  establishment,  so  I  spoke  rather 
confidently  to  my  Major  about  it. 

He  sighed.  "Ah,  our  Queen !    I  am  afraid  you  can't  see 

131 


132  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

her  to-day.  She  is  a  housewife  as  well  as  a  Queen,  now. 
To-day  she  is  moving !" 

The  very  impossibility  of  the  excuse  satisfied  me  mo- 
mentarily. Later  I  caught  Major  L looking  too  con- 
scious, and  taxed  him  with  evasion. 

^'^Well/'  he  replied,  after  a  good  deal  of  fencing,  ^^the  truth 
is,  I'm  sorry  to  say,  she  is  not  going  to  see  you.  You  see, 
there  are  fifty  correspondents  who  have  made  that  request. 
If  she  granted  you  an  audience,  there  would  be  forty-nine 
madmen  who  would  make  life  too  miserable  for  anybody 
in  Belgium  to  endure!  Perhaps  you  will  be  as  lucky  as 
another  American — I've  forgotten  his  name.  He  was  re- 
fused an  audience  with  the  King,  and  the  very  same  day 
met  His  Majesty  accidentally  in  a  hospital  and  talked 
with  him  for  half  an  hour.  Ten  minutes  is  about  the  limit 
for  such  things  officially.  Maybe  we  shall  meet  the  Queen. 
But  she  is  terribly  shy,  our  little  Queen — I  warn  you !" 

I  kept  my  eyes  very  wide  open  after  that,  and  pulled 
every  political  wire  I  knew  of,  in  both  Belgium  and  Paris, 
but  without  any  other  result  than  profusely  courteous  tele- 
grams and  letters  regretting  to  state,  and  so  on.    Major 

L tried  his  best  to  make  up  to  me  for  the  dissappoint- 

ment.  He  showed  me  things  not  usually  given  to  visitors  to 
behold,  things  impossible  to  relate;  finally  he  took  me 
through  a  long,  dangerous,  winding  hoyau  or  communica- 
tion trench,  and  then  by  boardwalk  over  terrifying  marshes 
where  shells  still  dropped,  and  by  sighing  willows  that 
mourned  their  stricken  country,  to  the  fire  trenches  at  the 


EUSER  WILBELHS 

REDE 

AN  SEIN  dSTHEER 

im  Dezember  1914 


Seid  Ihr  eingedenk,  dass  Ihr  das  auser- 
waehlte  Volk  seidl  Der  Geist  des  Herrn  ist 
auf  mich  niederg^ekommen,  denn  ich  bin 
der  Kaiser  der  Deutsohen  I 

Ich  bin  das  Werkzeug  des  Aller- 
hcBohsten  I 

Ich  bin  sein  Sohwert^seinStellvertreterl 

Ungltlck  und  Tod  seien  alien  denen. 
die  meinem  Willen  widerstehen ! 

Ungltlck  und  Tod  seien  denen,  die  an 
naeine  Mission  nicht  glauben!  Ungltlck 
und  Tod  den  Feiglingen  I 

Sie  sollen  umkouimen,  a^le  Feinde  des 
deutschen  Volkes  t 

Gott  verlangt  ihre  Vernichtung',  Gott, 
der  Eucb  durcb  meinen  Mund  befiehlt, 
seinen  Willen  auszuftlhren  I 

WILHELM  II. 


PROCLAMATION" 

Of  William  II,  to  His  Army  of  the  East, 
December,  1914 

Eemember  that  you  are  the  chosen  people ! 

The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  descended  upon  me  because  I 
am  the  Emperor  of  the  Germans  I 

I  am  the  instrument  of  the  Almighty  I 

I  am  His  sword,  His  representative  I 

Disaster  and  death  to  all  those  who  resist  my  will ! 

Disaster  and  death  to  all  those  who  do  not  believe  in 
my  mission !    Disaster  and  death  to  cowards ! 

May  all  the  enemies  of  the  German  people  perish ! 

God  orders  their  destruction  and  God  commands  you 
through  my  mouth  to  do  His  will. 

William  II. 


THE    BRAVEST    ARE   THE    BELGIANS     133 

edge  of  the  inundated  section.  In  a  few  moments  a  con- 
cealed battery  of  150's — six-inch  guns — began  to  intone 
their  daily  litany.  I  felt  as  though  Vesuvius  had  suddenly 
'^et  go"  right  under  me.  The  roar  and  shriek  of  bombard- 
ment is  terrific.  But  the  unexpected  discharge  of  a  big  gun 
behind  an  absolutely  silent  line,  is  nerve-racking.  THe 
shells  went  so  far  I  could  see  no  result  of  the  Belgian 
strafing,  and  the  enemy  made  no  answer  to  the  raucous 
challenge,  fortunately  for  me — ^there  seemed  no  hiding 
place  for  my  indecent  length  behind  the  low  defenses. 
There  are  few  real  trenches  in  this  part  of  Belgium — ^the 
ground  is  too  moist.  Usually,  as  in  this  case,  there  are 
mounds  of  earth  and  sandbags,  breast  high,  with  dugouts 
and  ingeniously-contrived  shrapnel-proof  shelters  burrowed 
into  them,  the  marshy  ground  or  water  reaching  up  to  the 
men's  very  heels. 

Here,  the  marshes  behind,  the  inundation  before,  bat- 
tered houses  in  the  distance,  ammunition  dumps  in  danger- 
ous proximity  to  both  their  batteries  and  the  trenches 
themselves,  all  the  sadness  of  Belgium  seemed  concentrated. 
The  soldiers  looked  wooden  and  stolid,  creatures  who  had 
lost  everything,  who  had  become  inured  to  hopelessness, 
who  had  no  joy  in  even  the  fierce  exaltation  of  combat. 
They  gave  me,  the  stranger,  one  glance,  and  paid  no  further 
attention.  Not  even  curiosity  stirred  in  them  until  Major 
L remarked  to  a  Sergeant  that  I  was  an  American.  In- 
stantly the  man  became  human.  I  asked  him  to  tell  me  of 
his  country,  of  what  she  has  suffered,  of  whether  America 


134  WITH  THREE   ARMIES 

has  really  done  as  much  for  Belgium  as  we  at  home  like  to 
think  we  have. 

In  broken  French — ^he  was  a  Fleming,  and  spoke  French 
but  indifferently — ^he  painted  a  picture  of  the  Belgian  re- 
sistance, of  the  horrors  of  that  desperate  first  year  of  fight- 
ing, when  the  men  stood  for  weeks  on  end  thigh-deep  in 
ice-water  and  slime,  until  their  feet  were  eaten  alive  by  the 
little  white  worms  they  had  no  time  or  opportunity  to  clear 
away ;  of  the  desperation  of  that  stand  along  the  Yser,  when 
they  had  six  rounds  of  cartridges  apiece  for  their  rifles, 
and  about  four  for  the  field  guns ;  of  the  horrible  attempts 
at  bayonet  work  with  Belgian  bayonets  less  than  half  the 
length  of  the  German,  when  only  the  guts  (his  word)  of 
the  Belgians  carried  them  on  at  all ;  of  the  drowning  out  of 
the  countryside,  with  farm  and  home  vanishing  in  the  dirty 
gray  waters  before  their  eyes;  of  the  populace  burned  to 
death,  shot,  speared  like  eels,  poisoned,  whipped  and  beaten 
with  every  degree  of  savagery,  deported  in  droves,  coerced 
into  slavery ;  of  the  hideous,  systematic  starving  of  the  rem- 
nant of  the  Nation,  with  hollow-eyed  babies  clawing  at 
their  skeleton-like  mothers'  flat  and  empty  breasts  and 
wailing  feebly  for  the  food  that  was  not  there — or  any- 
where ;  of  America's  aid,  with  the  one  pitiful  meal  a  day  it 
made  possible  as  the  sole  salvation  of  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren ;  of  the  endless  bread-and-soup  lines  winding  down  the 
streets  in  rain  and  storm,  holding  their  tatters  together 
with  shivering,  emaciated  hands,  while  full-fed  hoches 
gibed  at  their  pitiful  condition — and  took  care  always. 


THE   BEAVEST    ARE   THE   BELGIANS     135 

'^yellow  dogs"  that  they  were — oH,  the  bitter,  bitter,  con- 
tempt in  his  face  and  voice! — to  keep  well  clear  of  the 
hunger-maddened  hands  that  would  eagerly  have  torn  them 
apart;  of  the  American  declaration  of  war  at  last,  after 
nearly  three  years  of  aloofness. 

I  wish  I  could  convey  the  cynical  inflection  of  the  Ser- 
geant's voice  as  he  told  of  his  and  his  comrades'  view  of  us 
as  a  new  ally,  and  their  belief — ^bred  largely,  no  doubt,  by 
the  overt  sneers  of  the  Germans,  which  permeated  the 
whole  of  Europe — that  we  were  coming  in  nominally  to 
fight,  really  to  make  a  few  more  billions  in  some  huge  con- 
tracting scandal.  And  I  wish  I  could  picture  his  face — • 
and  the  faces  of  the  men,  who  by  this  time  had  crowded 
around — as  he  sketched  in  a  few  vivid  sentences  the  slowly- 
dawning  consciousness  on  the  part  of  all  Belgium,  from 
King  to  peasant,  that  our  colossal  plans  were  actually  in 
earnest!  His  cold  blue  Flemish  eyes  fired  into  steely 
sparks  as  he  talked,  blazed  when  I  asked  him  what  he  and 
his  companions  thought  of  President  Wilson. 

''Six  months  ago,"  the  Sergeant  said,  ''we  all  spoke  of 
him  as  'L' Homme  aux  notes'  and  'Le  Pedagogue.' "  (The 
man  that  writes  notes,  and  the  Schoolmaster.)  "To-day 
we  know  him.  We  were  mistaken,  mon  Dieu!  He  is  the 
savior  of  Europe ;  perhaps,"  his  voice  fell  to  a  reverent  note, 
"the  savior  of  the  world.  He  is  the  genius  of  the  hour !" 

Before  the  tribute  of  this  simple  Flemish  soldier  I  stood 
mute.  What  we  had  done  seemed  so  paltry,  so  meager, 
when  a  whole  nation  was  starving  at  our  very  doors,  an^ 


136  WITH   THEEE    AKMIES 

civilization  and  Christianity  were  at  stake.  We  had  sent  a  few 
■million  dollars,  a  few  shiploads  of  foodstuffs  and  clothes. 
But  we  had  not  stricken  our  armed  hands  into  the  hands 
extended  across  the  sea.  We  had  not  even  listened  to  the 
voice  of  ordinary  common  sense  and  begun  to  prepare, 
:  while  there  was  time,  for  the  struggle  inevitable.  Now, 
with  what  Lloyd  George  has  so  aptly  described  as  our 
typical  "volcanic  energy ,''  we  were  trying  to  make  up  for 
the  opportunity  the  time-serving  politicians  had  thrust 
aside.  But  we  were  late,  oh,  so  late,  that  this  praise  and 
gratitude  struck  painfully  deep,  as  much  a  ruthless  indict- 
ment as  it  was  praise. 

To  it  all  Major  L listened  gravely,  nodding  his  appro- 
bation of  the  Sergeant's  glowing  words.  Before  we  left 
him,  leaning  there  against  the  parapet  and  caressing  his 
worn  rifle  with  skilled  fingers,  I  said  to  him :  "And  now, 
mon  brave — .  The  Belgians  will  still  resist,  will  go  on 
fighting?'' 

His  lean  fingers  tightened  on  his  weapon.  "To-day  we 
are  happy,"  he  said  simply.  "I  am,  my  squad" — ^he  waved 
about  him  at  the  listening  infantrymen — "is,  the  whole 
Army  is,  our  King  is  I  When  the  last  Belgian  dies,  we  shall 
stop  fighting." 

•Major  L and  I  walked  back  over  that  lugubrious, 

creaky  boardwalk  beside  the  willow  trees  and  the  ammuni- 
tion dumps  in  silence.  "When  the  last  Belgian  dies !"  The 
Sergeant's  tone  implied  that  he  believed  the  last  Belgian 
might  die — ^but  that  the  cause  for  which  they  fought  would 


THE   BEAVEST    ARE   THE    BELGIANS     137 

be  carried  on  and  on,  until  the  beaten  Hnn  would  cry  for 
mercy. 

It  does  not  make  any  difference  wbat  England  has  done 
or  may  do ;  it  does  not  make  any  difference  what  France  has 
done  or  may  do;  or  Italy,  or  the  United  States.  The  fact 
remains,  whatever  any  one  says  about  the  Belgians — and 
there  has  been  sharp  criticism  in  many  quarters,  accusing 
them  of  slacking  and  ingratitude  in  foreign  countries  since 
the  first  terrible  year — ^that  Belgium,  and  Belgium  alone, 
saved  civilization  by  interposing  a  solid  dam  of  her  own 
living  flesh  and  blood  which  held  back  the  wave  of  German 
frightfulness  until  France  and  England  could  reach  the 
field.  And  so  long  as  one  single  Belgian  man,  or  one  Bel- 
gian woman,  or  even  one  mutilated  Belgian  child  remains 
with  a  flickering  spark  of  the  Belgian  spirit  in  him  or  her, 
Belgium  is  not  dead,  but  alive  and  fighting  still ! 

To  write  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Belgians  without  pas- 
sion is  to  be  bloodless  and  devoid  of  humanity  I  Their  full 
story  can  never  be  told  in  prose ;  and  the  poet  to  hymn  the 
epic  of  Belgium  is  not  yet  bom.  What  singer  of  to-day 
could  tell  the  story  of  that  German  sentry  in  the  prison  in 
Dinant  who  calmly  strangled  a  Belgian  baby  in  its  mother's 
arms,  because  its  hungry  wailing  annoyed  his  gentle 
nerves,  or  of  that  wretched  old  man  hanged  by  the  neck 
Just  high  enough  to  let  him  rest  his  weight  first  on  one 
desperately  stretched  leg  and  then  on  the  other,  balancing 
thus  for  hours  while  his  murderers  laughed  at  his  frantic 
efforts  not  to  die?    (Arlon,  1914.)    What  poet  could  tell 


138  WITH   THREE   AEMIES 

adequately  of  tHe  pettiness  of  these  monsters,  wHo  turned 
from  butchery  and  violation  to  such  trivialities  as  mixing 
a  Belgian  grocer's  supplies  of  cloves  and  pepper  with  his 
flour,  or  filling  his  smoking  tobacco  with  chunks  of  sweet 
butter?  Who  could  sing  the  glory  of  the  German  medical 
congress  that  turned  the  most  magnificent  halls  of  the 
superb  Palace  of  Justice  in  Brussels  into  vomitoriums  and 
latrines?  It  would  take  a  Homer  himself  to  describe  the 
burning  of  the  church  at  Houtem-sous-Yilvorde  on  Sep- 
tember 13,  1914,  while  a  crack  regimental  band  executed 
the  most  fetching  German  music  close  by,  outdoing  even 
Nero's  fiddling. 

There  were  cases,  of  course,  where  the  destruction  the 
Germans  wrought  was  purely  military  in  its  reasons,  and 
so  not  to  be  charged  against  them  except  as  a  result  of 
their  plan  for  world  domination  at  whatever  cost.  But  the 
destruction  of  those  marvels  of  Louvain,  the  Hotel  de 
Ville — ^more  a  gem  of  Flemish  Gothic  sculpture  than  of 
architecture,  so  covered  was  every  foot  of  it  with  delicate 
carving — and  the  University  with  its  priceless  library,  was 
cold-blooded  savagery  for  which  no  reason  existed. 

Where  can  I  stop  the  tragic  story — ^where  is  the  end? 
To  quote  an  embittered  Englishman  who  loves  the  Belgium 
he  knew  and  fears  for  the  lovely  old  cities  like  exquisite 
Bruges  of  the  Belfry:  'Ve  know  the  Beast  now  and  the 
nature  of  him.  If  he  have  his  way,  he  will  make  an  end  of 
Bruges  before  he  loose  his  claws.  With  his  devilish  chem- 
istry of  fire  and  explosion,  he  wiU  utterly  destroy  all  that 


THE   BEAVEST    AEE    THE    BELGIANS     139 

beautiful  old  history  of  ancient  halls  and  noble  houses,  of 
bridges  and  towns  and  gates.  ...  He  has  made  his 
filthy  lodging  in  the  good  old  houses  .  .  .  and  never  were 
there  such  days  in  Bruges,  even  when  the  anger  of  the 
Emperors  was  hot  against  the  citizens.  ...  I  think  of 
what  he  has  wrought  in  those  French  towns  from  which 
the  sullen  beast  has  been  driven  out,  and  I  fear  for  the 
last  peril."* 

We  shall  need  to  fear,  unless  we  tell  the  Hun  in  clear 
Anglo-Saxon  that  we  will  pay  him  in  his  own  coin,  city 
for  city,  when  we  win.  We  shall  not  need  to  destroy  the 
romantic  old  German  towns  so  famous  in  picture  and 
story.  But  his  Essens,  his  Potsdams,  his  gaudy,  flaring, 
nouveau  riche  towns  where  all  the  sordid  materialism  of 
the  creature  puffs  itself  large ;  these,  if  burned  and  leveled 
flat,  would  hurt  his  pride  and  chastise  his  spirit. 

One  evening  at  dinner  my  Captain-Doctor  told  with 
relish  of  his  latest  experience  with  an  air  raider.  As  he 
was  going  home,  a  bomb  burst  in  the  street  he  had  just 
turned  out  of,  and  the  concussion  threw  him  ten  feet.  He 
jumped  up  and  ran  toward  his  house.  As  he  reached  it,  a 
bomb  fell  at  the  other  end  of  his  own  block,  and  again  he 
was  knocked  down.  While  he  was  struggling  to  get  his  key 
into  the  door,  by  this  time  quite  ready  to  plunge  into  his 
cellar,  a  third  bomb  fell  squarely  in  his  back  yard — and 
failed  to  explode. 


♦London,  England,  Evening  News,  October  6,  1917. 


140  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

"Nex'  morning/'  he  laughed,  in  his  queer,  twisted  Eng- 
lish, ^^  I  went  out  in  de  back  yard  to  look.  Zat  son  of  a  gun 
of  a  bum,  'e  was  lyin'  in  a  hole  in  ze  pavement.  I  was  so 
dam'  glad  'e  didn'  go  off,  I  didn'  know  w'at  to  do.  You 
know  w'at  I  did  ?  I  lean  over  him  an'  I  make  ze  sign  of  ze 
Cross — soT  illustrating.  "An'  I  say  to  'im,  'You  ccm'  go 
off  now,  you  son  of  a  gun !'  Zen  I  curse  de  hocJie  zat  drop 
it,  like  zisT  and  he  gave  a  fluent  anathema  in  Flemish 
which  seemed  comprehensive  and  soul-satisfying  for  even 
a  man  who  had  had  such  a  narrow  escape. 

His  experience  was  only  one  of  many  illustrations  of  the 
uselessness  of  the  aeroplane  in  war,  except  when  employed 
as  a  scout,  photograph,  artillery-spotting,  or  general  recon- 
naissance machine.  To  be  effective  for  frightfulness,  it 
would  have  to  be  used  in  such  large  fleets  that  the  very 
number  of  the  machines  would  render  the  attack  vulner- 
able to  the  anti-aircraft  guns;  singly,  it  is  negligible  and 
tremendously  costly.  That  it  is  the  most  spectacular  and 
til  rilling  single  feature  of  modern  warfare  no  one  who  has 
seen  an  air  fight  can  deny. 

One  such  fight  I  saw,  a  mad,  impossible,  swirling  tumble 
in  the  clouds  between  an  Ally  machine,  one  of  the  latest 
types,  a  veritable  hornet  of  the  air,  and  four  large  hoche 
planes,  with  British,  Belgian  and  German  anti-aircraft 
guns  all  taking  pot-shots  at  intervals.  Around  the  flyers 
burst  the  shrapnel  in  puffy  white  and  gray  clouds,  the 
wicked  purr  of  their  own  machine-guns  playing  an  insolent 
obbligato  to  the  bigger  guns'  throaty  music.    One,  two. 


THE    BKAVEST    ARE    THE    BELGIANS     141 

three  of  the  Germans  dropped  plummet-like,  or  fluttered 
down  like  twisted  leaves.  And  presently  the  Ally  and  the 
surviving  hoche  spiraled  almost  straight  up  at  frightful 
speed  and  angles,  dueling  to  the  death.  We  did  not  see 
what  happened  above  the  cloud  of  vapor  into  which  they 
disappeared  at  perhaps  a  mile  and  a  half.  Both  guns  still 
spat  steel  and  fire.  And  then  one  gun  stopped.  Only  the 
slower  put-put-put!  of  the  German  went  on,  stopped,  spat 
again,  and  stopped  for  good.  Down  through  the  dank 
cloud  came  the  Ally  machine,  tumbling  over  and  over,  witK 
bent  wings  and  no  guiding  hand.  The  German  battery 
opposite  took  a  final  and  successful  round  at  it,  and  ii 
dropped  like  a  stone  inside  their  lines.  "Was  it  Captain 
Guynemer  we  had  seen  fall?  He  was  shot  down  that  day] 
near  that  spot,  in  a  similar  fight.    .    .    . 

Near  Eurnes,  close  enough  to  the  front  lines  even  yet 
to  catch  an  occasional  shell,  stands  the  hut  and  social  serv- 
ice station  known  as  the  Canal  Boat  Mission,  over  whicH 
presides  a  Canadian  lady  who  regards  the  flying  hoche  with 
scant  respect,  though  she  has  suffered  more  than  once  froni 
his  attentions.  For  three  years  Mrs.  Inness-Taylor  has 
somehow  managed  to  keep  the  Mission  stocked  with  Amer- 
ican and  British  foods,  groceries,  canned  things  of  all  sorts, 
soap,  clothing,  books,  everything  imaginable  that  a  people 
in  distress  could  need.  With  her  own  war-roughened  hands 
she  has  dressed  the  wounds  and  sores  of  more  than  two 
thousand  Belgians — and  lost  part  of  a  finger  through  in- 
fection ;  with  her  own  hands  she  helped  to  feed  during  two 


142  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

school  years  the  six  hundred  children  who  dared  to  attend 
school  in  the  low,  carefully  camoufles  buildings  across  the 
road  from  her  hut.  With  her  own  hands  she  answered  the 
plea  of  a  refugee  who  came  up  while  we  were  talking,  and 
begged  for  a  shirt.  I  asked  her  if  she  were  not  worn  out ; 
if  she  would  not  welcome  the  opportunity  to  go  home  for 
a  rest.  Her  Spartan  reply  shamed  me. 

"Go  home?  While  there  are  more  Belgians  to  be 
helped?   Ohr 

She  did  not  talk  well — of  herself.  Only  by  cautious 
questioning,  with  Major  L prompting  her  at  every  halt- 
ing sentence,  did  I  learn  of  her  long  service  and  of  the 
horrors  she  had  gone  through.  Not  long  before,  when 
talking  with  her  assistant,  a  Scotch  lady,  in  the  very  door 
where  we  now  stood,  a  Grerman  aviator  dropped  a  bomb 
one  of  whose  flying  shards  slashed  her  companion  in  two, 
and  deluged  Mrs.  Inness-Taylor  herself  with  the  warm 
blood.  Still  with  the  Major  prompting,  I  learned  of  her 
tiny  dugout  in  the  back  yard,  only  a  step  from  her  door, 
and  persuaded  her  to  show  me  that  inadequate  shelter. 

"It  is  all  right  for  shrapnel,"  she  said  without  a  quaver 
in  her  strong,  womanly  voice,  "but  I  imagine  if  I  am  ever 
down  here  when  a  shell  falls,  I  shall  certainly  'go  west.' " 

As  I  came  away,  she  showed  me  her  store  of  condensed 
milk,  and  told  with  tears  in  her  voice  of  the  gratitude  of 
the  aged  men  and  women  and  the  babies  it  was  keeping 
alive. 

"When  you  go  back,"  she  pleaded,  "do  tell  America  that 


Her  Majesty  the  Queen  of  the  Belgian; 


Mrs.  Inness-Taylor 


THE    BRAVEST    ARE   THE    BELGIANS     143 

we  want  more  milk  all  the  time.  It  is  all  that  is  keeping 
many  of  these  poor  children  and  old  people,  too  feeble  to 
work,  and  too  poor  to  get  away,  from  dying  of  actual  star- 
vation. American  milk  is  the  best  we  have,  you  have  only 
to  ship  it  to  the  Belgian  Canal  Boat  Mission,  in  care  of  the 
British  Admiralty  in  London,  and  we  shall  get  every 
precious  drop." 

Mrs.  Inness-Taylor  is  not  the  only  woman  doing  noble, 
heroic,  self-sacrificing  duty  on  that  dreary  Belgian  front. 
Queen  Elizabeth  of  the  Belgians  is  doing  a  wonderful  work 
in  her  field — all  the  more  wonderful  when  one  considers 
her  German  nativity.  Bom  a  Bavarian  Princess,  she  has 
had  to  endure  not  only  the  horrors  that  the  others  have  wit- 
nessed, but  the  further  horror,  spared  to  the  Belgian  and 
French  and  English  women,  of  knowing  that  it  is  her  own 
blood  kin,  which  has  crucified,  is  still  crucifying  the  people 
of  whom  she  is  the  official  head  and  mother. 

And  how  magnificently  she  has  served  Belgium  through- 
out its  black  hours!  No  Queen  before  in  the  history  of 
mankind  has  so  fully  measured  up  to  the  loftiest  ideals  of 
womanhood:  heartening  her  royal  husband;  cheering  the 
men  in  the  trenches;  succoring  the  sick  and  starved,  the 
wounded  and  dying.  And  when,  in  those  memorable  days 
of  1914,  that  pitiful  stream  of  refugee  children  was  driven 
like  spray  before  the  German  wave,  some  of  them  orphaned, 
some  of  them  hysterical  with  the  horror  of  what  they  had 
witnessed,  some  of  them  mutilated,  and  all  of  them  fright- 
ened, hungry  and  hopeless,  more  like  a  pack  of  starved 


144  mTH   THKEE    AEMIES 

wolf  cubs  than  like  human  children,  the  great  Queen  opened 
wide  her  mother's  heart  and  took  them  into  it.  She  fed 
their  empty  stomachs;  she  nursed  their  neglected  wounds; 
she  soothed  and  healed  the  broken,  trembling  hearts,  to  the 
last  dirty,  shivering,  homeless  urchin  of  them  all. 

To-day  Elizabeth  of  Belgium  wears  no  royal  crown.  She 
wears  a  more  precious  diadem,  the  blazing  Red  Cross  of 
mercy;  wears  it  royally,  wears  it  with  all  the  glory  and 
modesty  of  majestic  womanhood,  worthy  as  any  Belgian 
born  of  Caesar's  'liorum  omnium  fortissi  sunt  helgae!" 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  THE  GERMAN  ATROCITIES 

When  the  first  reports  of  German  atrocities  committed 
in  Belgium  and  France  reached  the  United  States  they 
were  discredited  as  soon  as  heard.  No  civilized  hnman  be- 
ing could  believe  that  other  humans  professing  the  same 
general  scheme  of  civilization  could  possibly  be  guilty  of 
crimes  at  once  so  revolting  and  so  apparently  useless.  But 
evidence  kept  piling  up.  Fresh  allegations  appeared  every 
day  in  the  press.  The  testimony  of  reputable  eye-witnesses 
gave  solidity  to  the  reportorial  accounts.  And  presently 
the  Governments  of  Belgium,  France  and  England  issued 
official  statements  of  sworn  evidence.  At  last,  we  had  to 
believe — did  believe,  unless  possessed  of  a  consciousness 
either  ignorant,  undeveloped,  or  wilfully  blind. 

To  such  specimens  it  can  only  be  said  that  everything 
they  have  read  in  their  newspapers  as  to  the  atrocities  com- 
mitted upon  wounded  soldiers  and  sailors,  upon  civilians 
of  both  sexes  and  all  ages — even  upon  the  babies! — are 
only  a  tithe  of  the  truth.  The  whole  truth  is  too  sicken- 
ing, too  absolutely  revolting,  to  be  told. 

Yet  even  when  most  of  us  did  believe,  the  hideous  thing 
was  utterly  beyond  our  comprehension.  What  did  it  mean  ? 
What  was  the  psychology  back  of  it  ?  How  was  it  humanly 

145 


146  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

possible  that  the  people  who  produced  a  Luther  and  a 
Reformation ;  who  gave  to  the  world  a  Mozart,  a  Beethoven, 
a  Kant;  a  people  who  have  long  been  known  as  a  home- 
loving,  affectionate,  sensible  and  industrious  folk — how 
could  this  people  possibly  disembowel  babies  and  crucify 
women  who  had  previously  been  raped  into  raving  insan- 
ity.* Such  a  people  could  not.  But  the  Germany  of  Luther, 
of  the  Reformation,  of  the  kindlier  spirits,  is  dead.  The 
soul  has  been  ironed  out  of  it  by  the  neo-Nietzschian  philos- 
ophy of  Prussian  militarism.  One  need  only  turn  with  eyes 
opened  and  intellect  sharpened  by  the  war,  to  the  history, 
literary  as  well  as  political,  of  the  German  people,  to  under- 
stand. The  list  of  German  thinkers  and  writers  who  havo 
preached  discord,  inhumanity,  treachery,  brutality,  fright- 
fulness,  hatred,  world-domination  at  whatever  cost,  in- 
cludes some  surprising  names. 

Frederick  the  Great  made  an  excellent  beginning  with 
his  arrogant  epigram,  "Never  form  alliances  except  to  breed 
hatred.'^  His  contemptuous  reference  to  the  Marechal  de 
Soubise — "He  has  twenty  cooks  and  not  one  spy.  I  have 
twenty  spies  and  not  one  cook^' — ^was  as  scathing  a  self- 
indictment  as  it  was  bitter  a  jest. 

The  moderns  have  followed  that  eighteenth-century  cue 
so  closely  they  have  overrun  it.  The  long  roll  may  be 
headed  by  the  mad  philosopher  Nietzsche,  the  historian 
von  Treitschke,  the  military  critic  von  Bernhardi,  and 


♦Proofs  of  this  statement,  both  verbal  and  documentary,  are 
at  the  disposal  of  serious  investigators. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF  ATROCITIES     147 

their  like,  exponents  who  carried  their  propaganda  of  ruth- 
lessness  to  the  Nth  degree  with  an  effrontery  as  unblush- 
ing as  their  premises  were  false  and  their  arguments  im- 
possible. Line  by  line,  their  own  utterances  convict  them : 
Nietzsche,  for  example,  in  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  when 
he  says :  ^'We  hold  that  hardness,  violence,  slavery,  danger 
in  the  street  and  in  the  heart,  secrecy,  stoicism,  arts  of 
temptation  and  deviltry  of  all  kinds;  that  everything  evil, 
terrible,  tyrannical,  wild-beastlike,  and  serpentlike  in  man 
contributes  to  the  elevation  of  the  species  just  as  much  as 
its  opposite — and  in  saying  this,  we  do  not  even  say 
enough." 

Von  Treitschke  says  the  Germans  let  primitive  tribes 
'^decide  whether  they  should  be  put  to  the  sword,  or  thor- 
oughly Germanized.  Cruel  as  these  processes  of  trans- 
formation may  be,  they  are  a  blessing  to  humanity.  It 
makes  for  health  that  the  nobler  race  should  absorb  the 
inferior  stock."  General  von  Bernhardi  lamented  the  hu- 
manity of  Europe  in  the  ominous  statement:  "There  is  a 
tendency,  as  vain  as  it  is  erroneous,  to  wish  to  neglect  the 
brutal  element  in  war,"  while  General  von  Hartmann 
insists  that  modern  war  demands  "far  more  brutality,  far 
more  violence,  than  was  formerly  the  case,"  and  in  another 
place  declares  ^^the  term  ^civilized  warfare'  .  .  .  seems 
hardly  intelligible  ...  it  carries  in  itself  a  plain  con- 
tradiction." 

The  utterances  of  the  poets  and  musicians,  lovers  of 
beauty  and  nominally  apostles  of  learning  and  culture. 


PROCLAMATION 

The  Tribunal  of  the  Imperial  German  Council  of  War, 
sitting  in  Brussels,  has  pronounced  the  following  sentences : 

Condemned  to  Death  for  conspiring  together  to  commit 
Treason : — 

Edith  Cavell,  Teacher,  of  Brussels. 
Philippe  Bancq,  Architect,  of  Brussels. 
Jeanne  de  Belleville,  of  Montignies. 
Louise  Thuiliez,  Professor  at  Lille. 
Louis  Severin,  Chemist,  of  Brussels. 
Albert  Libiez,  Lawyer,  of  Mons. 

For  the  same  offence  the  following  have  been  condemned 
to  15  3^ears'  hard  labour: — 

Hermann  Capiau,  Engineer,  of  Wasmes. 
Ada  Bodart,  of  Brussels. 
Georges  Derveau,  Chemist,  of  Paturages. 
Marv  de  Croy,  of  Bellignies. 

At  the  same  sitting,  the  War  Council  condemned  17 
others  charged  with  treason  against  the  Imperial  Armies 
to  sentences  of  penal  servitude  and  imprisonment  varying 
from  two  to  eight  years. 

The  sentences  passed  on  Bancq  and  Edith  Cavell  have 
already  been  fully  executed. 

The  Governor-General  of  Brussels  brings  these  facts  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  Public  that  they  may  serve  as  a 
warning.  The  Governor  of  the  City, 

General  von  Bissing. 

Brussels,  12th  October,  1915. 


e 


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THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   ATROCITIES      149 

prove  that  these  men,  while  not  so  bloodthirsty  as  their  less 
artistic  brethren,  were  quite  as  fully  impregnated  with  the 
national  self-sufficiency  and  self-consciousness,  and  lusted 
after  world  domination.  Yes,  the  soul  has  been  ironed  out 
of  the  old  Germany.  The  Germany  of  to-day  is  a  huge 
mechanical  abortion,  neither  so  perfect  that  it  can  not  be 
destroyed,  nor  so  imperfect  that  we  can  permit  it  to  go  on 
being  perfected,  and  thus  eventually  becoming  powerful 
enough  to  fulfil  its  proclaimed  destiny  of  overpowering  the 
whole  world. 

Incredible  though  it  be,  the  Germans  themselves  do  not 
deny  the  atrocities;  rather,  they  glory  in  tliem.  General 
von  Disfurth  says:  '^We  do  not  have  to  justify  ourselves. 
Whatever  our  soldiers  do  to  hurt  the  enemy,  we  accept  in 
advance."  Omitting  the  most  hideous  and  nauseating  in- 
fractions of  the  generally  accepted  modern  code  of  warfare, 
consider  this  list — 

The  shooting,  by  squads  of  riflemen  and  by  machine- 
guns,  singly  and  en  masse,  of  civilians  and  soldiers,  without 
regard  to  age,  sex,  occupation  or  momentary  activities; 
butchery,  by  order,  of  wounded  on  the  field  of  battle ;  rape, 
with  little  children  sometimes  among  the  victims;  mutila- 
tions, of  women,  children,  civilian  males,  prisoners  of  war, 
the  wounded,  and,  most  despicable  of  all,  the  dead ;  the  use 
of  non-combatants  as  a  screen  for  German  troops  in  action ; 
the  deportation  of  whole  populations ;  enforced  labor  under 
fire;  the  importation  of  prostitutes  into  France  and  Bel- 
gium to  act  as  spies;  the  systematized  official  introduction 


150  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

of  'Svliite  slavery" — the  victims  being  Belgian  and  Trench 
women — in  the  Ardennes,  for  "the  pleasure  and  benefit  of 
the  Imperial  German  troops";  the  poisoning  of  wells;  the 
distribution  of  poisoned  candy,  food,  medical  and  surgical 
supplies;  the  dissemination  of  poisoned  propaganda  bal- 
loons; the  defilement  of  houses,  palaces,  public  buildings, 
religious  institutions  and  churches ;  looting  by  official  war- 
rant, often  under  official  supervision;  the  unnecessary  de- 
struction of  the  Ardennes  and  other  forests;  the  blowing 
up  of  roads,  river  and  canal  banks  and  waterworks;  the 
annihilation  of  entire  towns;  the  cutting  down  or  ruining 
of  fruit  and  shade  trees,  vines,  shrubs,  etc. 

While  the  Great  General  Staff  accepted  all  this  "in  ad- 
vance," the  German  people  accepted  it  quite  as  cheerfully 
afterward,  as  innumerable  German  newspapers,*  books  and 
pamphlets  published  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  show. 
The  one  which  touches  us  most  intimately  is  a  pamphlet 
by  Pastor  D.  Baumgarten,  of  Berlin,  in  which  he  says,  in 
the  course  of  an  amazing  discourse  upon  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount:  "Whoever  can  not  prevail  upon  himself  to 
approve  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania — whoever  can  not  conquer  his  sense  of  the  gi- 
gantic cruelty  to  unnumbered  perfectly  innocent  victims 
.  .  .  and  give  himself  up  to  honest  delight  at  this  vic- 
torious exploit  of  German  defensive  power — him  we  judge 
to  be  no  true  German.'^ 


*I  have  photographic  copies  of  such  newspapers,  giving  de- 
tailed accounts  of  some  of  the  crimes  indicated. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   ATROCITIES      151 

It  is  only  fair  to  state  that,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
some  of  the  German  soldiers  were  not  able  to  look  on  or 
take  part  in  the  frightful  excesses  without  feeling  the  dumb 
stirrings  of  that  human  conscience  which  all  the  biological 
arguments  of  militaristic  Germany  had  not  been  able  en- 
tirely to  stifle.  Consider  some  soldiers'  diaries  on  this 
score : 

Gefreiter  Paul  Spielmann,  I  Kompanie,  Ersatz-Batail- 
lon,  I  Garde-Infanterie-Brigade,  wrote  of  a  night-alarm  on 
September  1,  1914,  near  Blamont:  ^'Die  EinwoJiner  sind 
geflucJitet  im  Dorf.  Da  sa  es  grdulich  aus.  Das  Blut  glebt 
an  alle  Baute,  und  was  man  fur  Gesicliter,  grassUch  sa  alles 
aus.  Es  wurde  sofort  sdmtliche  Tote,  die  Zahl  60,  sofort 
leerdigt  Fiele  dlte  Frauen,  Ydter,  und  eine  Frau,  welche 
in  Enthindung  stand,  grauenhaft  alles  manzusehen,"  etc. 
"The  inhabitants  fled  through  the  town.  It  was  horrible. 
Blood  was  plastered  on  all  the  houses,  and  as  for  the  faces 
of  the  dead,  they  were  hideous.  They  were  buried  all  at 
once,  some  sixty  of  them,  including  many  old  women  and 
fathers,  and  one  woman  about  to  be  delivered.'' 

This  first-class  soldier  had  not  reached  that  altitude  of 
Teutonism  of  which  Dr.  Gefrorrer  speaks  in  the  line: 
"Frenchmen  or  Slavs  are  accessible  to  moments  of  pity; 
the  German  never  or  rarely."  But  the  war  was  young  in 
1914,  and  doubtless  Gefreiter  Paul  progressed  to  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  the  General  Staff. 

One  other  weakling,  Private  Haesemer^  of  the  Ylllth 
Corps,  entered  in  bis  diary: 


153  WITH   THKEE   ARMIES 

"3.9.14.  Sommepy,  Marne.  A  frightful  bloodbath.  Vil- 
lage burnt  to  the  ground,  the  French  thrown  into  the  burn- 
ing houses.  Civilians  and  all  burnt  up  together,"  or,  in  the 
original  German  text:  ''Ein  schrecJcliches  Blufbad,  Dorf 
obgebrarmi,  die  Franzosen  in  die  hrennenden  Hduser  ge- 
worfen,  Zivilpersonsfn  alles  mitverbrandt." 

An  unsigned  diary  of  an  officer  of  the  178th  Saxons  re- 
grets some  of  the  wild  butcheries  in  the  Belgian  Ardennes 
in  late  August  and  September,  but  a  little  later  a  change 
comes  over  the  rapidly  hardening  soul  of  this  gallant  sol- 
dier, and  he  notes  without  comment  that  "a  scout  from 
Marburg,  having  placed  three  women  one  behind  the  other, 
brought  them  all  down  with  one  shot.'' 

Economical  scout!  Did  he  receive  the  Iron  Cross  for 
this  saving  of  ammunition  ? 

Considering  the  fact  as  established,  we  are  now  most  inter- 
ested in  knowing  exactly  why  such  crimes  were,  are  still  (on 
or  about  December  twenty-fifth — ma/rk  the  date  ! — an  Amer- 
ican soldier  was  found  by  his  comrades  after  the  Germans 
had  retreated,  with  his  throat  cut),  and  will  go  on  being  com- 
mitted. What  is  the  psychology  behind  the  actual  deeds 
themselves?  Do  the  Germans  commit  their  atrocities  as  a 
result  of  the  mob  spirit  which  we  Americans  understand 
only  too  well;  in  the  mad  heat  of  battle;  when  inflamed 
by  either  alcohol  or  resistance?  Or  do  they  commit  them 
because  of  individual  degeneracy?  No  doubt,  in  so  vast  a 
body  as  the  German  Army,  all  the  causes  suggested  at  one 
time  or  another,  developed  atrocities.    That  is  unfortu- 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   ATROCITIES      153 

nately  true  in  every  army  in  war  times,  our  own  included. 
With  the  German  Army,  however,  very  little  is  fortuitous. 
The  appalling  fact  is  that  by  far  the  larger  and  often  the 
most  cruel  atrocities  in  Belgium  and  France  were  com- 
mitted under  direct  orders. 

An  order  of  Major-General  Stenger  to  the  men  of  the 
LVIIIth  Brigade,  composed  of  the  112th  and  142d  In- 
fantry Eegiments,  at  Thiaville,  Meurthe-et-Moselle,  on  the 
afternoon  of  August  26, 1914,  reads :  ''Von  heute  ahwerden 
Tceine  Gefangene  melir  gemacht  SdmtUche  Gefangene 
werden  niedergemacTit.  Verwundete  oh  mit  Waffen  oder 
Wehrlos  nieder gemacht.  Gefangene  audi  in  grosseren  6 
gesMossenen  Formationen  werden  nieder  gemacht.  Es 
hleihe  Tcein  Feind  lehend  Muter  uns."  In  English :  ^^After 
to-day  no  more  prisoners  are  to  be  taken.  All  prisoners  are 
to  be  killed.  The  wounded,  with  or  without  arms,  are  to 
be  killed.  Prisoners  even  in  convoys  of  six  or  more,  are  to 
be  killed.  No  living  enemy  shall  be  left  behind  us.'^ 

Private  Moritz  Grosse,  177th  Infantry,  at  Dinant,  scrib- 
bled in  his  diary:  "Throwing  of  bombs  into  the  houses. 
In  the  evening,  military  chorale.  Nun  danhet  alle  Gott 
(Kow  all  thank  God).''  Private  Paul  Glode,  of  the  9th 
Battalion,  Pioneers,  IXth  Corps,  ends  one  page  of  his 
diary  with  the  line :  ''Yerstummehmgen  der  Yerwundeten 
sind  an  Tagesordnung — Mutilation  of  the  wounded  is  the 
order  of  the  day.'' 

Only  degenerates  could  issue  such  orders;  only  degener- 
ates could  carry  out  such  orders,  not  only  in  the  letter,  but 


154  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

in  the  spirit  as  well.  The  natural  and  obvious  objection, 
that  a  whole  nation  of  degenerates  is  a  moral  impossibility, 
is  easily  controverted. 

For  more  than  a  century  the  ruling  classes  of  Germany 
have  been  mesmerizing  themselves  with  the  belief  which 
Eichte  voiced  so  clearly  when  he  said:  "Germans  .  .  . 
it  is  you  who,  of  all  the  modern  nations,  have  received  in 
quantity  the  germs  of  human  perfection;  and  it  is  to  you 
that  the  premier  role  has  been  given  in  its  development. 
If  you  succumb,  humanity  will  perish  with  you.^^  The  iirst 
step  in  carrying  out  that  '^premier  role  in  its  development" 
was  taken  by  Frederick  the  Great  in  1763,  when  Fichte 
was  only  a  year  old.  The  Emperor,  finding  his  peasants  too 
stupid  to  make  soldiers,  decreed  education,  of  a  sort,  and 
just  enough,  to  fit  them  for  military  training. 

Thenceforward  the  educational  system  developed,  now 
under  the  spur  of  a  Fichte's  philosophic  imagination,  now 
given  new  fire  by  a  poet's  dream  that  "the  whole  world 
must  be  German"  (Heinrich  Heine),  until  it  resolved  itself 
into  an  almost  military  system  apart  from  soldier.  Obedi- 
ence, respect  for  authority  and  the  word  issued  by  author- 
ity, patient,  industrious  thoroughness,  and  a  practical  de- 
nial of  the  individual's  right  to  originality,  made  it  very 
largely  a  repressive  system,  whose  result  has  been  that  the 
masses  never  lose  their  subservience  to  any  superior.  This 
lack  of  right  to  originality  may  be  denied  fiercely,  since 
We  Americans  have  always  had  a  mistaken  idea  of  German 
education.    We  supposed  naturally  that  because  scientific 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OP   ATROCITIES      155 

specialization  and  encouragement  of  a  free  spirit  of  re- 
search in  technical  and  scientific  work  characterized  the 
German  universities,  the  same  thing  applied  throughout 
the  whole  educational  system.  It  does  not.  The  lower 
schools  start  the  youngster  right — ^right,  that  is,  accord- 
ing to  the  German  notion — and  when  he  moves  on  to  the 
higher  grades  (comparatively  few  do),  he  grows  naturally 
in  the  rut  where  he  was  started. 

It  is  a  system  which  has  proved,  in  the  hands  of  unscru- 
pulous authority,  a  philosopher's  stone  of  sorts.  By  using 
it  adroitly,  it  has  been  possible  to  transmute  human  beings 
into  the  mechanical  parts  of  an  Army,  which  in  its  turn  is 
merely  the  physical  manifestation  of  the  German  meta- 
physics. These  mechanical  creatures  or  new  beings,  when 
not  actually  in  military  service,  look,  talk,  behave  generally 
like  human  beings;  and  so  they  deceived  the  world.  But 
they  are  not  human.  They  are  the  veritable  "blond  beast"' 
of  Metzsche,  "rejoicing  monsters,  who  perhaps  go  on  their 
way,  after  a  hideous  sequence  of  murder,  conflagration, 
violation,  torture,  with  as  much  gaiety  and  equanimity  as 
if  they  had  merely  taken  part  in  some  student  gambols." 
Love,  sympathy,  mercy,  the  power  of  individual  thought 
and  reason,  are  foreign  to  them.  The  natural,  or  rather, 
the  primitive,  instincts  govern  them.  Their  inhibitory 
centers  are  so  blunted  and  dulled  by  the  schooling  they 
have  had  that  ordinary  conventions  no  longer  apply  to 
them  in  even  so  small  a  thing  as  courtesy. 

A  very  important,  if  not  a  vital  part  of  this  newer  Ger- 


156  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

man  philosophy,  is  the  doctrine,  based  on  biology  by  many 
of  the  foremost  of  Germany's  intellectuals,  that  the  essence 
of  life  is  conflict.  The  Darwinian  idea,  developed  to  suit 
the  greedy  ambitions  of  Germany,  and  warped  without  re- 
gard to  modern  conditions,  is  the  basis  of  the  new  theses. 
Briefly,  these  ideas  are  that  natural  law  must  inevitably 
work  out  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest  among  twentieth- 
century  humanity,  as  it  has  always  done  among  the  brutes. 
By  this  ruthless  means  only  the  best  of  humanity  is  per- 
mitted to  endure,  and  this  evolution  assures  the  salvation 
of  society.  Germany,  according  to  this  ingenious  argument, 
takes  the  place,  for  mankind,  of  the  rigors  of  winter  and 
summer,  lack  of  food  and  water,  powerful  enemies  and 
sickness  that  certainly,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  weed  out 
the  weaklings  from  among  the  birds  and  animals. 

The  German  philosophy  considers  the  German  mind,  the 
German  body,  the  German  system  of  life  and  of  govern- 
ment, so  far  the  best  in  existence  that  there  is  no  com- 
petitor; hence  it  must  necessarily  overcome  all  others  and 
rule,  harshly,  until  mankind  realizes  its  benefits  and  yields 
to  it.  With  characteristic  modesty,  the  Germans  endorse 
fully  Professor  von  Seyden's  declaration  that  "the  Germans 
are  the  chosen  people  of  the  world.  Their  destiny  is  to 
govern  the  world  and  to  direct  the  other  nations  for  the 
good  of  humanity,"  and  the  similar  utterances  of  Maxi- 
milian Harden,  the  editor  of  Die  Zukunft,  who  wrote  in 
September,  1901,  that  it  is  "clearly  the  sense  of  history 
that  the  white  race,  under  thei  conduct  of  the  Germans,, 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF   ATROCITIES      157 

arrives  now  at  the  real  and  definitive  domination  of  the 
world;"  and  again,  "the  hour  now  sounds  when  Germany 
must  take  its  place  of  power,  directing  the  whole  world." 
Germany  has  been  so  thoroughly  drilled  in  this  for  years 
that  almost  every  one  believes  it  as  implicitly  as  he  believes 
in  the  difference  between  daylight  and  darkness.  It  is  not 
a  matter  for  argument;  it  admits  of  no  real  debate;  it  is 
the  fundamental  fact  of  the  modern  universe. 

It  is  this  very  honesty  of  their  self-deceit  that  makes  the 
Germans  so  dangerous.  Their  faith  in  a  world-absorbing 
destiny  for  Germany  is  the  blind  notion  of  children  who 
cry  peevishly,  "We  want  to  become  a  world  people !  Let  us 
remind  ourselves  that  the  belief  in  our  mission  as  a  world- 
people  has  arisen  from  our  originally  purely  spiritual  (my 
italics)  impulse  to  absorb  the  world  into  ourselves."  (Prof. 
F.  Meinecke.)  That  "spiritual"  impulse  so  evident  for  the 
past  three  years  is  a  favorite  doctrine  of  the  German  clergy, 
and  we  find  the  Herr  Pastor  Lehmann  indulging  himself 
in  such  genial  religious  camouflage  as  "It  is  enough  for  us 
to  be  a  part  of  God,"  and  "the  German  soul  is  God^s  soul :  it 
shall  and  will  rule  over  mankind."  Dr.  Preuss  rises  to  no- 
ble heights  of  inspiration  with  his  "He  (God)  has  by  His 
hidden  intent  designated  the  German  people  to  be  His  (the 
Messiah's)  successor."  Pastor  J.  Eump's  outcry  that  the 
Entente  Allies  fighting  Germany  are  a  "Jesusless  horde,  a 
crowd  of  the  Godless"  whom  he  fears  because  ^^our  defeat 
would  mean  the  defeat  of  His  Son  in  humanity,"  is  almost 
as  emetic  as  his  other  cry — "We  are  fighting  for  the  cause 


158  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

of  Jesus  within  mankind  V  It  is  Dr.  Prenss,  however,  who 
touches  the  uttermost  height  of  this  blasphemous  idealiza- 
tion of  Germany  with  the  lines :  "God  has  in  Luther  prac- 
tically chosen  the  German  people,  and  that  can  never  be 
altered,  for  is  it  not  written  in  Roman  xi :  29,  'For  the  gifts 
and  calling  of  God  are  without  repentance'  ?"  He  explains 
modestly  that  the  Germans  necessarily  have  not  fully  mer- 
ited this  calling  and  election :  ''it  proceeds  from  the  sheer 
grace  of  God,  so  we  can  maintain  it  without  any  Pharisaism 
whatever." 

Can  or  need  anything  more  be  said  ?  Surely  I  have  pre- 
sented evidence  enough  to  any  doubting  Thomas  to  prove 
that  the  committing  of  atrocities  by  the  Army  and  Navy, 
and  the  acceptance  and  glorification  of  them  by  the  German 
people  is  the  logical  progression  of  their  development  in 
degeneracy  under  the  tutelage  of  their  megalomaniacs: 
critics,  philosophers,  clergy,  historians,  professional  sol- 
diers, and  the  ruler  who  holds  his  powers  by  Divine  right 
— ^we  have  his  own  word  for  it. 

And  the  psychology  back  of  it  all  is  the  false  German  phi- 
losophy of  life,  a  psychology  of  madnCvSs,  that  carries — ^let 
us  hope — its  own  cure  of  complete  self-destruction. 


CHAPTEE  XI 


HATE 


When  the  incredible  reports  of  the  German  villainies 
were  well  authenticated,  there  cropped  out  simultaneously 
an  amazing  rumor.  France,  we  were  told,  actually  did  not 
hate  Germany  for  what  she  was  doing.  It  was  superhuman 
— impossible !  We  could  not  believe  that  the  French,  fiery 
by  nature,  volatile  and  temperamental  as  we  had  known 
them  to  be,  could  go  on  fighting  in  the  old  spirit  that  had 
always  characterized  them  in  warfare — from  the  days  when 
that  great  French  knight  and  gentleman  stepped  out  before 
his  Army  and  bowed  to  his  British  foe  with  the  courteous 
lequest:  "Will  you  not  do  me  the  honor  to  fire  first,  sir?" 

The  explanation  lies  in  the  unwillingness  of  the  French- 
man to  believe  in  the  German's  announced  policy  of  fright- 
fulness,  in  his  earnestly  maintained  conviction  that  the 
outrages  of  ten  thousand  kinds  were  simply  part  of  the 
madness  due  to  war  itself :  the  sporadic  madness,  in  a  word, 
of  the  individual  under  the  impulse  of  the  greater  madness. 
There  is  no  doubt,  too,  that  a  chivalrous  people  can  never 
fully  credit  the  unchivalrous  with  their  full  measure  of 
indecency.  That  spirit  burned  clear  and  unwavering 
through  all  the  first  three  years  of  the  combat.  The 
Frenchman  emphatically  did  not  hate  the  German. 

159 


160  WITH   THREE    AKMTES 

And  then  came  the  heyday  of  hate,  of  Teutonic  hate — 
and  the  Frenchman  learned  overnight  to  hate  with  a 
fierceness  and  profundity  as  fiery  as  his  chivalry.  Gennany 
has  with  her  own  blundering,  stupid,  material  efficiency 
raised  a  wall  so  thick  and  strong  and  high  between  herself 
and  France  that  I  believe  no  payment  of  indemnities,  no 
re-establishment  of  friendly  relations,  no  lapse  of  cen- 
turies even,  will  ever  breach  it  and  readmit  Germany  to  the 
ancient  basis  of  eqiial  intercourse.  Hatred  is  usually  to  be 
deprecated  for  its  folly ;  sometimes  it  is  justified,  as  hatred 
for  sin ;  but  there  are  times,  and  this  is  one  of  them,  when 
hatred — like  Bret  Harte's  murder  of  the  ^^Chinee" — is  not 
only  justifiable,  but  positively  praiseworthy;  and  he  would 
be  a  poor  specimen  of  Frenchman  who  did  not,  from  the 
very  uttermost  depths  of  his  soul,  hate  the  German  for  his 
atrocious  bestiality,  to-day,  to-morrow,  and  forever;  hate 
him  with  the  hatred  of  loathing,  of  bitter  contempt,  with 
the  conscious,  righteous  ire  of  an  outraged  superior  who  can 
not  even  think  of  the  unclean  creature  without  revulsion. 

I  must  not  be  understood  by  this  panegyric  of  hate  to 
mean  that  the  Frenchman  can  ever,  under  any  circum- 
stances, so  far  forget  himself  as  to  ordain  a  regime  of  like 
viciousness.  France  could  not  be  guilty  of  that  and  remain 
France.  So  her  hatred  is  tinged  with  bitterness  by  the 
knowledge  that  Germany  deliberately  trusted  to  an  honor 
she  herself  was  far  from  possessing,  and  worked  her  diabo- 
lisms secure  in  the  certainty  that  she  would  not  be  required 
to  pay  in  kind. 


HATE  161 

It  is  unlikely  even  that  individuals  will  wreak  any  great 
amount  of  personal  vengeance.  I  picked  up  a  lone  French" 
Sergeant  one  day  on  the  Grands  Boulevards,  and  gave  him 
luncheon. — The  whole  war  is  right  here  on  those  Paris 
Boulevards.  A  sympathetic  ear,  a  few  invitations  to  lunch- 
eon, a  few  adroit,  tactful  questions,  and  one  could  build 
up  the  story  complete:  every  atrocity,  every  plan,  every 
success  and  defeat — and  every  man's  own  hopes  and  fears 
and  dreams. — We  talked  of  the  duration  of  the  war,  and 
the  Sergeant  shrugged.  He  did  not  know,  nor  did  he  seem 
especially  to  care,  how  long  the  struggle  would  continue. 
I  was  mildly  surprised,  since  all  France  is  weary  and  heart- 
sick. Then  he  added:  "If  it  goes  on  another  year  and  a 
half,  we  shall  get  across  the  Ehine,  now  that  you  Amer- 
icans are  here  to  help  us."  He  hesitated  a  moment,  his  blunt 
peasant  face  working  with  emotion  that  finally  refused  to 
be  suppressed.  ^^And  when  we  do  cross  the  border — God 
protect  Germany!" 

Masking  my  astonishment,  I  inquired  casually :  "Why  ? 
Will  you  pay  off  some  old  scores  ?" 

He  leaned  forward,  pointed  knife  and  fork  straight  at 
me,  transfixed  me  with  his  bayonet  eyes.  ''Me  void,  mon 
ami!  I  have  nothing  left.  Wlien  the  hoclies  retreated  from 
my  district,  my  wife  was  about  to  be  confined.  Two  of 
them  attacked  her.  My  seventy-two-year-old  mother  inter- 
fered. They  used  both  women;  both  died  in  their  hands. 
Then  they  blew  up  my  house,  obliterated  my  garden,  my 
town.    I  am  mad  when  I  think  of  it.   Can  I  withhold  my 


162  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

men  when  we  cross  the  border?  Suppose  they  want  to  do 
the  same  things — can  I  say  no,  with  my  eyes  still  seeing 
what  I  have  seen  ?" 

He  can  not — hut  he  mil!  When  that  day  comes,  if  he 
sees  a  German  woman  struggling  in  the  grip  of  one  of  his 
own  men,  he  will  spring  at  the  poilu  like  a  tiger.  The  spirit 
that  again  and  again  has  threatened  dire  vengeance  and 
mutilation  to  Germans,  and  then  fed  them  instead,  not- 
withstanding the  heat  of  action  and  the  elation  of  capture, 
will  not — in  the  large — ^permit  the  escutcheon  of  Erance 
to  be  stained. 

To  come  back  to  the  issue — ^what  was  it  roused  France  to 
a  true  appreciation  of  the  German  spirit  ?  It  was  the  Dev- 
astated Region — formless,  nameless,  unnameable — the  visi- 
ble manifestation  of  everything  heartless,  bestial,  obscene — 
the  essence  of  German  Kultur.  Never  before  seeing  that 
stricken  district  had  I  realized  how  close  to  his  mother 
Earth  a  man  can  be.  I  found  myself  bound  to  her  gaping 
wounds  by  the  rusted,  tangled  barbed  wire,  my  own  heart 
torn  in  sympathy  with  hers.  I  knew,  too,  that  the  frontiers 
of  to-day  are  no  longer  black  lines  on  a  green  map,  no 
longer  hypothetical  divisions  for  commercial  purposes. 
They  are  red  streams  on  a  groaning,  encumbered  earth. 
And  to-morrow  there  will  be  no  frontiers  at  all — for  to- 
morrow there  will  be  nothing  but  civilization. 

My  visit  to  the  Devastated  Region  was  made  on  the 
strength  of  a  courteous  note — "Le  Grand  Quartier  General 
a  accords  voire  voyage  de  region  de  Noyon  pour  mardi" 


HATE  163 

etc.  There  were  six  of  ns  in  the  party,  four  Americans,  a 
French  Aumonier,  or  Chaplain — twice  decorated  for  hero- 
ism under  fire — and  a  Spanish  Canon  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Cadiz,  acting  as  correspondent  for  the  clerical  newspaper 
of  his  city.  Our  Staff  Captain  had  his  hands  full  to  keep 
us  reasonably  bunched  and  fairly  near  our  schedule;  for 
some  one  of  the  party  was  invariably  seized  with  the  im- 
pulse to  dart  off  to  one  side  to  see  something  else  just  at 
the  moment  when  all  the  rest  had  finished  and  were  start- 
ing toward  the  motors.  By  miracles  of  tact  and  courtesy 
he  succeeded  better,  I  imagine,  than  he  had  anticipated. 
Certainly  our  dossiers — the  little  booklets  kept  by  the 
Foreign  Office  to  show  exactly  how  each  one  behaved  on  his 
various  trips,  and  filed  away  for  reference,  so  that  a  man 
who  proved  undesirable  could  be  politely  excluded  from 
France  in  the  future  if  such  a  course  seemed  wise  or  essen- 
tial— recorded  no  very  dreadful  misconduct,  since  we  all 
had  opportunities  later  on  to  visit  other  regions. 

The  train  carried  us  from  the  cavernous  Gare  du  N'ord 
to  Compiegne,  where  the  motors  picked  us  up  and  sped  us 
first  to  Eibecourt,  through  a  lovely  rolling  country  all 
gashed  and  ridged  yet  with  trenches,  both  French  and  Grer- 
man,  guarded  by  huge  tangles  of  barbed  wire  overgrown 
with  "foolish  herbs" — ^the  name  the  poetic  French  give 
plain  weeds. 

Eibecourt  was  not  an  important  town  in  its  prime. 
To-day  its  poor  houses  have  the  air  of  having  been  poign- 
arded  treacherously  in  the  back,  their  faces  smashed  in 


164  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

afterward  by  an  assassin  as  brutal  as  he  was  cowardly. 
When  I  think  back  to  that  sunny  afternoon,  how  the  racial 
characteristics  of  our  little  party  stand  out! — the  Amer- 
icans unashamedly  profane;  the  Aumonier  volubly  dis- 
tressed ;  Canon  Cadiz  a  sphinx !  What  he  thought  I  never 
knew;  but  I  see  him  always  a  figure  all  dull  black,  with 
mute  hands  upraised  in  horror. 

To  the  Aumonier  it  was  a  doubly  painful  spectacle,  be- 
cause here  the  pilgrims  coming  down  from  Belgium  to 
Lourdes  used  to  stop  for  refreshment  and  prayer.  In  a  few 
graphic  words  he  sketched  ns  the  scenes:  the  long  train 
stopping,  the  pilgrims  in  their  Sunday  best  before  the 
altars  in  the  hospital  cars  and  outside  along  the  track, 
chanting  their  prayers  to  the  obbligato  of  the  sweet-voiced 
larks;  the  townsfolk  coming  up  with  gracious  little  offer- 
ings of  food  and  drink  and  good  wishes  to  these  seekers 
after  hope  and  health.  The  last  pilgi'image  was  in  June  of 
1914.  Barely  two  months  afterward  the  nurses  who  always 
accompanied  the  train  were  gathered  at  Louvain,  not  to 
aid  the  sick,  but  to  succor  the  victims;  and  the  hospital 
cars  were  in  a  bloodier  service  along  the  banks  of  the  Yser. 
And  now,  not  even  a  lark  sings  matins  in  Ribecourt- — the 
hoche  shot  them  all. 

If  I  could  only  give  the  picture  that  gentle,  kindly  old 
priest  gave  of  those  German  soldiers  humorously  picking 
off  the  larks — !  Or  if  he  had  preached  to  France — a  new 
Peter  Hermit  in  a  new  crusade — with  half  the  fire  he 
poured  out  for  us,  the  Army  would  have  bivouacked  on 


A  shell-crater.  The  hole  measures  about  two  hundred  and  twenty-five 

feet  in  circumference,  more  than  sixty  feet  in  diameter 

and  about  twenty-five  feet  deep 


What  the  German  does  not  demohsh  he  makes  useless, 
parts  of  macbinery  thrown  into  a  ditch 


Essential 


Photographed  by  Harris  Dickson,  Esquire 

Mr.  Riggs  in  the  captured  German  trench  at  Ribecourt  that  runs 

under  and  through  the  church  and  graveyard.  At  this 

point  the  trench  is  about  ten  feet  deep 


^^^ 

"'"  ~ "^  """^^^^^^^HB^k l^^l 

^tt^fl 

i"«i^ 

i44  _..-  f.**  mBm^^wa.    ■                   «  "i 

A  French  cemetery  where  the  Hun  has  amused  himself  by  tearing 
down  and  defihng  figures  of  the  Crucified  Christ, 


HATE  165 

Tfnter  den  Linden  before  this !  Yet  he  was  an  Aumoni&r, 
sacerdotal  dispenser  of  alms,  of  the  sacred  things,  purveyor 
of  Spirit  to  the  Regiment.  He  was  the  type  of  man  one 
can  go  to  with  troubles :  rotund,  ruddy,  wholly  human,  his 
hair  all  on  his  chin  in  a  splendid  gray  beard  instead  of  on 
his  bald  pate,  where  a  deep,  ragged  dent  told  of  the  shrap- 
nel wound  he  would  explain  only  by  the  single  word, 
"Touched !"  As  we  left  the  train  at  Compiegne  he  darted 
over  to  the  cafe,  the  long  black  skirts  of  his  soutane  stream- 
ing out  behind,  and  returned  panting  with  a  box  of  candy 
"for  my  good  children  wherever  we  find  them."  He  made 
quite  a  Joke  out  of  giving  us  each  a  single  piece  to  taste, 
and  no  more;  for  sweets  are  precious  to  the  fighting  man. 
His  pockets  were  like  a  boy's,  full  of  bits  of  string,  a  knife, 
matches,  cigarettes  for  his  "children,"  crumpled  letters, 
and  a  curious  little  leather  bag  fastened  with  a  snap.  In  it 
was  an  ugly,  almost  square  bit  of  "scghahp-nelV  which  he 
said,  with  twinkling  eyes,  he  had  carried  "three  months  in 
my  shoulder — two  years  in  my  pocket.  They  gave  me  this 
for  it !"  he  added,  unconscious  as  a  child,  patting  affection- 
ately the  bronze  Croix  de  Guerre  beside  the  star  of  the 
wounded  on  his  broad  chest.  But  how  did  he  get  it  ?  "Oh, 
la,  la!  It  was  nothing,  nothing  at  all!  Merely  helping  a 
wounded  a  little !" 

At  Dreslincourt,  a  few  hundred  meters  farther  along, 
there  were  houses  completely  battered  to  pieces  and  others 
right  beside  them  spared,  one  would  think,  by  miracle — • 
until  one  understands  that  they  were  used  by  German 


166  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

officers  until  the  last  moment,  when  there  was  no  time  to 
ruin  them  in  the  haste  of  retreat.  A  sunken  dirt  road 
wanders  across  the  pleasant  fields  to  a  maze  of  German 
trenches  and  tremendous,  concrete  dugouts  with  roofs  rein- 
forced by  steel.  Before  them  the  road,  camoufle  with  nets 
and  branches,  was  dappled  with  shade  and  sunshine  that 
gave  it  a  pleasant  air  not  even  the  gas-alarm  bell  still 
hanging  in  its  place  could  take  away.  But  the  dugouts 
themselves  were  dark,  unwholesome,  smelly  places.  What 
did  they  think  about  as  they  lay  on  their  unclean  straw  in 
there,  those  vanished  Germans  who  left  behind  them 
crumpled  copies  of  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  and  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse,  broken  bottles  and  tin  cans?  As  they  looked 
cautiously  out  over  the  smiling  fields  toward  the  French 
wire,  did  they  think,  did  they  reason  and  ponder  as  the  men 
of  the  other  Armies  are  doing  in  like  conditions?  What 
dreams  did  they  dream — of  conquest,  of  loot,  of  violence 
or  of  home  ?  Or  did  they  merely  browse  like  other  animals  ? 
After  Dreslincourt,  Chiry  and  Passel,  came  the  begin- 
ning of  that  frightful  spectacle  of  cut-off  trees  we  were  to 
see  so  much  of  in  a  few  hours,  the  evidence  everjrwhere  of 
a  destruction  as  carefully  calculated,  as  coldly  ferocious  as 
it  was  absolutely  thorough:  the  planned-in-advance  anni- 
hilation of  every  source  of  riches,  of  even  life  itself  for  the 
soil !  Here  miles  of  cement  telegraph  and  power-transmis- 
sion poles  had  been  d3rDamited,  each  on  the  same  side,  each 
at  the  same  height  above  the  ground,  each  felled  in  the 
one  direction.    What  a  sight  these  fallen  symbols  of  the 


HATE  167 

god  of  the  thunderbolt,  each  with  its  quaint,  twisted,  Chi- 
nese-dragonlike tails  of  useless  wires  !  Everything  that  had 
once  stood  erect  lay  flat — every  bit  of  destruction  pointed 
the  finger  of  mute  condemnation  after  the  retreating 
vandals. 

The  pillaged,  violated  graves  of  the  blasted  chateau  at 
little  Mont  Eenaud  fired  us  with  a  righteous  wrath  as  fu- 
rious as  it  was  helpless.  The  ancient  family  vault,  contain- 
ing eleven  sepulchers — ^nine  of  adults,  two  of  children — 
had  been  blown  open.  The  wood  of  the  caskets  had  been 
smashed,  the  leaden  cofiins  breached  enough  to  permit  in- 
famous hands  to  prowl  inside  and  pull  out  part  of  the 
sacred  dust.  What  ghoul  even  could  find  pleasure  in  dis- 
turbing the  ashes  of  those  long  dead — and  in  defiling,  in 
hideously  outraging  what  was  not  worth  stealing?  It  was 
incredible;  more  incredible  still,  that  the  two  tiny  caskets 
in  their  little  niches  above  should  have  been  pulled  aside 
and  left  askew,  but  otherwise  unharmed. — Champier  Ceme- 
tery is  another  black  blot  on  the  dark  German  name,  with 
its  smashed  tombstones,  its  violated  graves,  its  funerary 
monuments  recut  into  pretentious  memorials  of  the  odious 
dead  who  had  helped  before  their  deaths  to  do  these  things ! 

Noyon,  the  city  where  John  Calvin  once  lived,  was  not 
by  any  means  destroyed.  It  was  not  even  uninhabitable, 
and  the  streets  displayed  a  dolorous  animation  as  we  rolled 
through,  with  workmen,  patching  up  the  traces  of  the 
furious  fighting  that  had  preceded  the  retreat,  and  forlorn- 
Jookxng  citizens  here  and  there  returned  to  take  up  life 


168  WITH   THEEB    AEMIES 

all  over  again.  Calvin's  house — ^hardly  more  than  a  small 
stone  tenement — we  found  up  a  tiny  side  street  near  the 
main  square,  a  street  more  a  slit  for  air  between  the  houses 
than  a  real  passageway.  The  German  had  not  laid  so  much 
as  a  finger  upon  that  historic  dwelling.  Why  ?  A  Protes- 
tant Swiss  periodical  tried  to  answer  by  pointing  out  that 
the  Protestant  Grermans  no  doubt  remembered  Germany 
would  celebrate  the  fourth  centenary  of  the  Reformation 
in  October.  Wnat  could  be  more  evident  than  their  inten- 
tion to  ^^notify  Protestants  the  world  over  that  what  they 
regarded  as  sacred,  they  spared,  even  in  the  midst  of  their 
comprehensive  rage.''  In  one  of  the  lower  rooms  of  the 
house  a  mason  was  mixing  plaster  of  paris  to  repair  some 
cracks  in  the  ceiling,  and  in  another  a  souvenir-maker  was 
bending  over  his  bench  full  of  empty  rifle  cartridge-shells. 
They  gave  us  a  cheery  good  day  when  we  entered,  but  be- 
yond that  they  were  speechless,  as  good  artisans  should  be. 
The  Cathedral  is  less  damaged  than  I  expected:  only  the 
organ  shows  traces  of  the  invader's  sacrilegious  hand — its 
pipes  ravished  to  make  shell-bands. 

When  the  French  entered  Noyon,  every  building  in  any 
condition  at  all  was  immediately  put  to  some  service.  One 
house  seemed  absolutely  untouched,  but  it  was  filled  with  a 
frightful  odor.  Everything  was  polluted — ^beds,  tables, 
closets,  garments,  books  in  the  library.  Fortunately,  it 
seemed,  the  damage  was  not  irreparable,  and  the  house- 
cleaning  was  instant.  It  made  not  a  particle  of  difference 
— ^the  stench  remained.    Powerful  disinfectants  were  used 


HATE  169 

with  lavish  hand — ^no  use !  From  cellar  to  attic  the  enraged 
poilus  disinfected — and  hunted.  At  last  they  found  that 
the  water-tank,  stowed  away  under  the  high  pent-roof, 
had  been  used  as  a  latrine,  and  the  plumbing  system 
throughout  the  entire  house  impregnated.  Still,  even  that 
could  be  remedied.  It  was  worth  doing,  for  the  house  was 
too  valuable  to  destroy.  Before  it  could  be  done,  the  crown- 
ing infamy  was  discovered — a  laboriously  constructed  sep- 
arate system  of  piping,  conducting  the  essence  of  this  mass 
of  putrefaction  to  no  less  than  twenty  separate  orifices  in- 
side the  walls,  whence  it  dripped  down  to  spread  its  con- 
cealed seeds  of  death.  ISTothing  could  be  done.  That  per- 
fectly sound  house  had  to  be  completely  demolished  as  a 
menace  to  the  public  health.  How  the  Germans  must  have 
relished  such  a  kultural  joke ! 

The  city  had  its  share  of  the  deportations  and  abuses, 
even,  as  a  French  Colonel  testified,  to  the  issuing  of  requi- 
sitions for  pretty  girls.  And  a  brutal  Prussian,  while  the 
girls  were  being  gathered,  weeping  and  hysterical,  for  a 
fate  they  understood  only  too  well,  bellowed  at  one  of  them 
in  the  hearing  of  her  friends:  "What  are  you  sniveling 
about?  It  is  a  signal  honor  to  be  able  to  serve  a  Prussian 
officer  as  his  ^orderly' !" 

The  devastation  is  complete  throughout  the  region  be- 
tween Noyon  and  the  high,  rolling  ground  before  St.  Quen- 
tin,  where  the  German  lines  held.  Every  well  was  poisoned, 
and  wherever  there  is  a  tap,  glaring  red  signs  were  visible : 
"Dangerous  Water !   Do  Not  Drink !"  Nor  man  nor  beast 


170  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

at  first  could  slake  his  thirst  at  these  mocking  founts ;  and 
even  in  September  the  small  white  signs  proclaiming  ^'Eau 
Potable"  seemed  far  apart.  It  is  useless  to  enumerate  any 
but  the  more  impressively  ruined  towns  we  saw.  There 
are  others  literally  by  the  hundred  in  that  broad  area,  torn 
and  soiled  and  shamed  by  the  German  soldiery  in  stolid 
enjoyment  of  its  orders. 

Chauny  the  silent  runs  the  gamut  from  peace  to  war, 
with  its  hardly-touched  faubourg  or  suburb,  and  its  oblit- 
erated center.  When  their  two-year  tenure  of  the  town  was 
all  but  over,  the  Germans  herded  into  the  suburb  everybody 
not  destined  to  accompany  them  on  the  retreat — a  wretched 
little  company  of  the  aged,  the  sick  and  infirm,  the  crip- 
pled, whom  they  stripped  of  everything,  even  to  some  of  the 
clothing  they  had  on.  Then  the  whole  place  was  looted, 
systematically,  efficiently,  and  the  town  proper  set  on  fire. 
Fifty  of  WiQrenconcentreswQYQ  killed  in  the  process.  As  the 
Germans  marched  hurriedly  away  with  their  slaves  and 
their  plunder,  and  the  stricken,  whimpering  cast-offs  stood 
appalled  in  their  quarter,  the  field  guns  in  the  distance  took 
a  last,  vicious  strafe  at  it  that  killed  fifteen  more  of  them. 
Slowly  the  fiames  died  down.  Chauny  was  not. 

We  could  read  the  piteous  story  as  we  passed  slowly 
through.  The  destruction  had  none  of  the  systematic 
thoroughness  that  had  wiped  out  other  towns.  It  was  wild, 
chaotic,  hasty  in  the  extreme,  the  work  of  madmen  hard- 
pressed  for  time  and  conscious  of  an  enemy  on  their  very 
heels.  Houses  stood  split  in  two,  one  half  gone,  the  other 


HATE  171 

intact.  In  one  a  bed  stood  on  what  was  left  of  a  floor, 
three  legs  on  it,  the  other  in  the  air,  the  tattered  bedclothes 
flapping  in  the  wind.  Leaden  gutters  twisted  into  serpen- 
tine shapes  writhed  about  shattered  eaves.  Inthemain  square 
rose  an  unusually  lofty  wreck.  Before  March  of  1917  it 
had  been  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  or  Town  Hall.  Now  it  was 
recognizable  chiefly  by  the  Pompeiian  red  walls  of  its  care- 
fully-labeled Salle  de  Conseil,  where  a  big  white  plaster 
bust  of  the  Republic — the  only  thing  left — calmly  surveyed 
the  desolation  below,  totally  unaware  that  its  dignified 
Grecian  nose  was  smoked  perfectly  black ! 

N'ear  the  edge  of  the  town  stood  the  ruin  of  a  savings- 
bank  and  safe  deposit.  A  low  fragment  of  the  fagade,  and 
part  of  the  sign,  were  left ;  that  was  all.  The  steel  girders 
holding  up  the  floor  and  making  the  top  of  the  safe  deposit 
vault  had  been  twisted  by  the  explosion  of  a  mine  as  one 
twists  paper  spills.  Half-buried  in  the  debris,  one  of  the 
tiers  of  safe  deposit  boxes  showed  a  melancholy,  battered 
face.  Every  box  had  been  jimmied  open.  Whenever  the 
Germans  left  a  town  the  banks  were  systematically  plun- 
dered, all  the  specie  and  negotiable  paper  sent  to  Germany ; 
all  the  private  papers,  such  as  wills,  notes  of  hand,  deeds, 
mortgages,  etc.,  of  no  value  for  sale  to  the  conquerors,  were 
tossed  out  into  the  street  and  burned.  How  the  tangle  of 
personal  property  will  be  cleared  up  will  depend  entirely 
upon  the  good  sense  and  charity  of  the  persons  involved, 
since  most  of  the  records  have  been  destroyed. 

Just  outside  the  town,  on  one  of  those  roads  camoufle 


172  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

for  miles  by  ugly  strips  of  burlap  strung  between  lofty 
poles,  a  factory  had  been  blown  up.  What  it  had  been  I 
do  not  know,  beyond  the  fact  that  it  had  had  a  lofty  chim- 
ney and  a  vast  amount  of  internal  machinery.  Now  it 
looked  more  like  a  heap  of  giant^s  jackstraws  than  anything 
else,  without  form  or  shape.  Farther  along,  another  works 
of  some  sort  stood  outwardly  intact — ^but  every  essential 
piece  of  its  machinery  had  been  removed  and  thrown  into 
a  little  stream,  to  rust  into  uselessness  and  cripple  the  local 
industry.  Perhaps  it  was  cheaper  and  quicker  to  do  that 
than  to  bring  together  enough  explosives  to  demolish  the 
whole  structure.  The  methods  varied  with  the  exigencies 
of  the  place  and  moment,  the  policy  and  its  results  never. 

Frieres-Eaillouel  is  so  completely  gone  one  may  stand  at 
what  used  to  be  its  outskirts  and  ask,  "Where  ?" 

Not  far  distant  the  mutilated  plain  is  dominated  by  that 
amazing  mound  built  by  the  soldiers  for  the  amusement  of 
the  Kaiser's  second  son,  fat  Prinz  Eitel-Friedrich :  a  little 
butte  laboriously  heaped  up  in  perfect  geometrical  con- 
tours, moated  by  a  regular  wet  fosse,  crowned  with  a  fine 
rustic  summerhouse.  Above  the  front  entrance  to  this 
royal  lodge  was  the  inscription  in  German  blackletter, 
"Hubertus-Haus"  (St.  Hubert's  Lodge).  What  must  the 
saintly  patron  of  hunters  think  of  Eitel-Fritz's  hunt  ?  Big 
wooden  toadstools  served  as  seats,  a  cross-section  of  a  giant 
pine,  brought  from  some  distant  forest  at  enormous  labor, 
as  a  table.  I  wondered  the  Prince  had  not  sent  back  to 
Germany  for  the  hideous  little  colored  terra  cotta  gnomes 


HATE  173 

and  trolls  and  other  horrors  with  which  Germans  love  to 
stud  their  fairest  gardens — a  choice  example  of  this  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  suburbs  of  our  own  Pasadena ! 

Beer  and  scenery,  swilled  together  in  that  belvedere  of 
abomination !  A  grand  sweep  of  broad,  rolling  vale  flanked 
by  the  tender  shades  of  the  living  hills,  at  this  distance  un- 
marred  by  trace  of  cannon-scar  or  savage  ax ;  far  off,  quiv- 
ering in  the  sunshine  under  the  immense  blue  vault,  the  twin 
spires  of  Laon  and  those  of  St.  Quentin ;  and  somewhere  be- 
low the  horizon  the  City  of  Dreams,  the  coveted  siren  of  the 
imagination,  the  German  goal — Paris !  The  princely  beer 
must  have  been  sweet  on  such  a  spot,  where  the  princely 
imagination  had  reared  this  tumulus  after  the  fashion  of 
his  Hunnish  forebears.  Probably  the  princely  siestas  were 
sweet  also.  Von  Treitschke  says :  '^The  Latin  has  no  feel- 
ing for  the  beauty  of  a  forest;  when  he  takes  his  repose  in 
it  he  lies  upon  his  stomach,  while  we  rest  on  our  backs." 
Hoch  der  deutscher  embonpoint!  How  could  a  German  lie 
upon  his  stomach  ? 

About  the  mound  in  the  branches  of  fruit  tree  and 
mighty  plane  and  sycamore  bordering  the  highroad,  bird 
voices  mingled  sweetly  with  Nun  danJcet  alle  Gott  above  the 
distant  bruit  of  the  guns  until  the  days  when  that  "trium- 
phant, strategic  retreat"  began  with  the  swinging  of  the  ax. 
Clear  beyond  the  range  of  the  eye  German  efficiency  pro- 
ceeded methodically  and  unhurriedly  to  assassinate  the 
orchards,  where  the  buds  were  already  formed  and  all  but 
ready  to  burst  for  joy;. 


174  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

By  squads  and  companies  the  axmen  went  forth  in  the 
dawning.  When  they  returned  at  even  to  their  beer  and 
green  sausage  and  military  chorals,  the  little  fruit  trees 
that  had  made  this  halcyon  vale  a  land  of  jellies  and  pre- 
serves and  candied  fruits,  a  fat,  rich  land  sweet  to  the 
nostrils  in  spring  as  to  the  eye,  lay  in  rows,  bleeding  mutely 
to  death.  Every  tree  was  felled  at  the  same  height  pre- 
cisely; every  one  was  felled  in  the  same  direction.  They 
lie  there  yet  by  the  thousands  and  the  scores  of  thousands. 
Along  the  road,  the  axmen  were  aided  by  lusty  sawyers 
who  worked  with  equal  skill  upon  those  stately,  those  proud 
and  giant  poplars  and  buttonwoods  France  had  grown  so 
lovingly  these  many  years  to  shade  her  traveling  children 
and  their  flocks.  They,  too,  were  felled  all  at  the  same 
height,  all  with  their  noble  crowns  pointed  in  the  same 
direction.  The  inconceivable  sadness  of  the  scene  moved 
the  Russian  Prince  Vladimir  Ghika  to  muse  upon  it :  "The 
uniformity  of  orientation,  the  universality  in  the  destruc- 
tive measures,  exactly  executed,  meticulously  observed,  in 
the  middle  of  the  ash-heap  of  annihilated  villages,  produces 
a  strange  impression  as  of  a  ritual.  One  feels  himself  an 
observer  of  the  results  of  a  terrific  barbarian  sacrifice  to 
clear  their  conscience  before  some  deity  of  death." 

Eitel  Fritz  did  his  worst.  Nature,  when  he  had  gone, 
sent  her  kindly  dews  and  vivifying  rains  upon  the  butch- 
ered innocents  as  they  lay  there  in  rows  upon  the  sodden 
earth,  and  lo,  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands  they  bloomed, 
spending  their  last  atom  of  vitality  to  fill  the  eye  with  color 


HATE  175 

and  the  air  with  sweetness  again,  in  vain  but  beautiful  pro- 
test against  the  savagery  that  had  laid  them  low. 

Jussy,  that  never  was  shelled,  was  razed  house  by  house, 
tree  by  tree,  until  to-day  nothing  is  left  higher  than  a 
man's  knees — save  for  the  brickheap  of  the  church — and 
many  a  house  is  only  a  bald  spot  in  the  tangle  of  ruin.  For 
cold-blooded,  elaborately-planned  destruction,  carried  out 
with  the  ruthless,  detailed  care  characteristic  of  German 
Staff  plans,  Jussy  has  no  equal. 

More  than  two  thousand  inhabitants  had  made  the  town 
what  any  French  town  of  like  size  is  in  a  similarly  fertile 
and  productive  district:  one  big  family  of  neighbors  with 
the  same  interests  and  hopes  and  occupations,  contented 
with  little,  asking  naught  but  the  peace  of  a  cheery  old  age 
among  ancestral  conditions  and  possessions.  Germany  de- 
nied them  this.  And  not  content  with  the  destruction  of 
trees  and  buildings,  she  uprooted  and  trampled  every  vine, 
every  shrub,  every  living  thing,  blew  up  the  soil  itself, 
sowed  mines  under  the  roads  and  wherever  men  might  wish 
to  plow,  dropped  dead  animals  and  ordure  into  the  springs, 
smashed  the  bridge  across  the  river,  and  filled  the  stream 
itself  with  machinery  and  agricultural  implements  not 
otherwise  made  useless.  Before  the  work  was  completed  the 
French  advance  trod  hard  upon  the  locTie  heels,  and  the 
church  alone  is  not  so  wiped  out  that  it  can  not  be  recog- 
nized. Mines  were  hurriedly  set  off  under  each  corner,  and 
the  edifice  collapsed  upon  itself  in  an  enormous  heap  of 
brick  and  stones  and  mortar.     From  the  blasted,  defiled 


176  AVITH   THREE    ARMIES 

cemetery  behind,  some  Teutonic  wag  wrenched  a  great  iron 
cross,  thrust  it  upright  into  the  brickheap,  and  scribbled 
in  mocking  French  on  its  horizontal  arms,  *'C'est  la 
guerre/'  And  some  one  else  printed  above  it  in  strong  char- 
acters the  same  line  that  appears  across  the  fagade  of  the 
riven  town  hall  of  Peronne :  "NioM  drgern,  nur  wundern 
— Don't  rage — wonder  I" 

I  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  ruin  surveying  the  desolation, 
and  talking  with  Pere  G ,  a  soldier  priest,  when  I  be- 
came conscious  that  he  was  not  listening.  I  looked  up.  A 
commanding  figure  in  his  horizon  blue,  his  big  fists  clasped 
upon  his  broad  chest,  his  eyes  blinded  by  the  tears  that 
flowed  unashamed,  he  stared  unhearing,  unseeing,  upon  the 
broad  swath  of  the  retreat.  Shepherds  of  souls!  How  it 
must  wring  these  men  to  know  their  vocation  is  no  longer 
to  save,  but  to  destroy — to  prove  their  piety,  their  fitness  as 
spiritual  leaders  by  their  valor  in  the  field ! 

There  is  a  headquarters  here,  or  was  in  September,  and 
we  were  taken  over  to  be  presented  to  the  General  Ixe  and 
his  delightful  staff,  who  entertained  us  royally  at  tea.  The 
headquarters  building  had  big,  dry,  well-ventilated  cellars 
and  corridors  banked  with  sandbags  and  corrugated  sheet- 
iron  which  afforded  fair  shelter  against  everything  but  di- 
rect bombardment  from  the  air.  A  day  or  two  before  our 
visit  a  boche  avion  had  tried  for  the  building,  missed  it  by 
perhaps  a  hundred  feet,  and  demolished  a  motor  and  its 
occupants.  Before  that  similar  visits  had  battered  up  both 
building  and  officers,  so  we  were  warned  to  take  instant 
cover  if  a  hostile  machine  appeared. 


HATE  177 

The  main  salon  was  decorated  gaily  witH  multi-colored 
bunting  and  the  flags  of  the  Allies,  from  Siam  to  the 
United  States.  There  was  some  dubiety  in  the  mind  of  the 
senior  Major  about  the  Chinese  republican  flag,  and  he  con- 
fided his  doubts  that  he  had  enough  stripes  and  colors  in 
the  piebald  affair,  which  some  considerate  soul  had  labeled 
carefully  ^'Drapecm  de  la  Chine/*  so  that  none  need  mistake 
it  for  playful  camouflage,  A  sudden  stir  announced  Mon- 
sieur le  General,  a  fine,  short,  sturdy  figure  of  a  man  with 
kindly  eyes  that  took  in  everything,  and  gave  nothing  back 
by  way  of  comment.  He  talked  with  us  a  few  moments, 
expressed  his  satisfaction  that  the  United  States  was  at  last 
an  ally  in  fact  as  well  as  in  soul,  drank  a  toast  with  us,  and 
was  gone. 

How  wonderful  the  French  imagination,  to  call  their 
Engineers  who  work  marvels  of  rehabilitation,  Genie  I 
Aladdin's  genii  of  the  lamp  could  hardly  do  more.  The 
young  Lieutenant  of  Genie  who  replaced  the  old  stone 
bridge  by  a  temporary  wooden  structure  strong  enough  to 
pass  artillery,  had  lived  some  time  in  N'ew  York.  With 
the  Brooklyn  Bridge  in  mind,  he  contrived  to  make  his 
lofty  wooden  piers  with  their  hempen  cables,  skeletons 
though  they  were,  look  like  the  towering  edifice  of  stone 
and  steel  across  the  East  Eiver.  But  for  fear  his  work 
might  pass  unrecognized,  he  had  the  lintels  of  each  pier 
carved,  in  graceful  remembrance  of  his  model : 

JUSSY's  BROOKLYN 


CHAPTEE    XII 

EECONSTRUCTION 

'Appalling  Devastated  Eegion  of  France!  Would  that 
every  American  might  be  taken  through  it  to  see  something 
of  what  frightfulness  means,  to  realize  what  might,  saving 
our  Allies,  have  been  our  portion!  But  frightfulness  has 
failed  to  bring  France  to  her  knees.  Neither  has  it  brought 
her  into  the  arms  of  her  violator,  as  W.  A.  Kuhn  prophe- 
sied back  in  1914  at  the  beginning  of  the  war :  "The  future 
must  lead  France  once  again  to  our  side ;  we  will  heal  it  of 
its  aberrations,  and,  in  brotherly  subordination  to  us,  it 
may  share  with  us  the  task  of  guiding  the  fate  of  the 
world^' !  And  so,  while  most  of  her  energy  is  still  focused 
implacably  upon  war  and  the  defeat  of  her  enemy,  she  is 
serenely  able  to  begin  rehabilitating  the  devastated  houses, 
the  devastated  soil,  the  yet  more  devastated  souls  of  her 
children,  to  be  ready,  when  peace  comes,  to  take  up  life 
once  more  with  clear  eyes  and  a  vision  unclouded  by  the 
black  memories  of  outrage. 

The  smoke  of  the  French  guns  was  hardly  dissipated  be- 
fore the  region  was  invaded  by  rescuers  who  immediately 
fell  to  work  to  clean  up,  to  repair,  to  bring  the  essentials 
of  life  to  the  returned  refugees.  The  looting  of  the  towns 
had  been  as   complete   as  their   subsequent  destruction. 

178 


EECONSTEUCTION  179 

Every  useful  particle  of  metal,  rubber,  wool,  leather,  cord- 
age, paper ;  all  the  food  for  both  man  and  beast ;  all  the  ve- 
hicles ;  every  piece  of  furniture ;  bric-a-brac,  objects  of  art, 
musical  instruments;  even  old  clothes  and  shoes  that  could 
be  utilized  to  make  anything,  were  loaded  on  carts  in  classi- 
fied lots  and  sent  back  to  Germany  to  be  converted  for  the 
use  of  the  Army,  or  sold  in  the  Loot  Warehouse  established 
officially  to  let  the  Germans  at  home  buy  for  a  song  what- 
ever they  might  need,  or  desire  as  souvenirs.  The  plunder- 
ers did  not  overlook  bed  and  table  linen,  kitchen  and  table 
ware,  glass  and  crockery,  no  matter  how  poor  and  humble. 
Faithful  disciples  of  Nietzsche !  His  ruthless  doctrines  that 
the  world  merely  smiled  at  as  the  vaporings  of  a  madman 
were  the  text  the  Germans  expounded  here  to  the  very  let- 
ter— ^^Life  is,  in  its  essence,  appropriation,  injury,  the  over- 
powering of  whatever  is  foreign  to  us  and  weaker  than  our- 
selves, suppression,  hardness  ...  V  What  they  could 
not  possibly  remove,  they  destroyed  and  befouled.  The 
consequence  was  that  when  the  people  drifted  back,  whether 
they  had  shelter  or  not,  there  was  not  a  knife  or  fork  or 
spoon,  not  a  tablecloth  or  napkin,  not  a  pot  or  pan,  not  even 
a  tin  dipper  left.  Not  a  kitchen  stove  remained  for  cook- 
ing, nor  was  there  anything  to  cook. 

I  wish  I  could  make  the  awfulness  of  the  situation  real  to 
the  reader.  I  can't !  The  mind  can  not  grasp  such  an  utter 
vacuum.  Nobody  who  has  not  been  on  the  spot  can  realize 
what  it  means  to  face  the  absolute  lack  of  every  single  thing 
necessary  to  maintain  life.    So  the  first  work  of  reconstruc- 


180  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

tion  was  not  so  much  to  give  the  victims  adequate  shelter 
as  it  was  to  provide  beds,  coverings,  food  and  the  things 
with  which  to  cook  and  to  eat  it.   Townsfolk  and  peasants 
alike  proved  difficult  indeed  to  manage — ^half-crazed  by 
what  they  had  been  compelled  to  undergo  and  to  witness, 
and,  worst  of  all,  to  fear.    Reason  they  would  not  listen  to. 
They  flew  to  the  ruins  that  had  once  been  their  homes,  and 
their  grief,  their  rage,  their  pitiful  impotence  would  have 
torn  any  but  a  German  heart.     When  the  work  of  recon- 
struction was  commenced,  hundreds  of  them  insisted  on  re- 
maining in  the  damp,  unsanitary  shelters  they  had  burrowed 
under  the  ruins  of  their  houses.    The  rescuers — among  the 
very  first  to  bring  help  were  many  heroic  Americans, 
women  as  well  as  men — had  provided,  so  far  as  possible, 
for   every   contingency.      But   for    all    their   thoughtful- 
ness  and  prevision,  they  were  unable  to  bring  everything 
needed  on  those  first  emergency  trips.    Little  by  little 
something  was  done  for  each — clothes  here,  food  there,  a 
bed  yonder ;  a  nonagenarian  tottered  away  under  the  unac- 
customed load  of  a  mattress  and  covers  for  himself  and  his 
feeble  wife ;  a  ten-year-old  staggered  under  the  weight  of  a 
burden  heavy  enough  for  any  full-grown  man;  an  ancient 
dame  scowled  with  exaltation  over  her  wheelbarrow-load 
of  mattress,  bedding,  kitchen-table  and  odds  and  ends, 
fierce  as  a  mother  hen  if  any  dared  approach  her. 

The  major  portion  of  the  work  was  naturally  the  task 
of  the  French  Army.  While  the  ruins  still  smoked,  it  ex- 
tracted hidden  mines,  gathered  up  unexploded  shells  and 


EECONSTEUCTION  181 

bombs,  put  the  roads  in  condition  for  hard  usage,  pacified 
the  almost  wild  inhabitants  who  had  remained  in  the  re- 
gion, and  enticed  back  scattered  refugees.  It  sent  out  geo- 
graphical, agricultural  and  arboricultural  experts  every- 
where. They  surveyed  the  eighty  thousand  slaughtered  fruit 
trees  and  revived,  crown-grafted,  budded ;  decided  upon  the 
best  and  quickest  way  to  get  the  people  to  producing  their 
own  food  again;  and  set  the  example  by  drafting  artillery 
horses  and  men  to  plow  and  seed  and  cultivate  the  wounded 
earth.  The  Genie  in  the  vicinity  of  Noyon  alone,  by  May 
20, 1917,  had  patched  up  innumerable  houses,  planted  fifty- 
two  hectares  of  ground,  started  and  carried  well  toward  suc- 
cess those  innumerable  little  truck-gardens  with  which  this 
corner  of  fertile  Picardy  is  filled.  And  everywhere  the 
simplest,  most  direct  methods  were  followed.  Eor  once, 
in  the  face  of  distress,  France  tossed  red  tape  to  the  winds 
and  worked  only  for  results,  but  with  a  thoroughness  that 
assured  the  permanency  of  the  results. 

The  task  was  beyond  our  conception.  The  Prefect  of  the 
Somme  reported  that  in  his  district  alone  no  less  than  238 
communes  had  been  destroyed,  with  a  total  loss  of  more 
than  20,000  houses.  Perhaps  this  sort  of  thing  was  what 
that  pet  anathema  of  all  true  Britons,  the  renegade  H.  S. 
Chamberlain,  meant  in  glorifying  the  German  Army's 
"peaceful  work  behind  the  fronts"  which  "bears  witness 
to  a  thorough  spiritual  culture  and  a  living  organization 
such  as  the  world  has  never  seen." 

Between  the  Army  constructions  and  the  aid  coming 


183  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

from  outside  sources,  mostly  from  societies  of  civilians 
aided  by  British  and  American  effort  and  money,  1,100 
temporary  huts  or  houses  had  been  assured  by  September 
15,  1917,  though  only  142  habitable  shelters  and  fifty-four 
barracks  had  been  actually  constructed,  eight  of  which  were 
combinations  of  town  hall  and  school.  More  than  half  a 
million  francs'  worth  of  agricultural  machinery  and  tools 
had  been  distributed,  500  implements  smashed  by  the  Ger- 
mans repaired,  and  1,500  more  brought  to  the  shops  estab- 
lished by  the  British  at  Peronne  for  repair.  Similar  forges 
and  machine-shops  were  in  process  of  construction  in  other 
localities,  an  immense  depot  of  seeds  and  foodstuffs  estab- 
lished in  one  place,  and  another  started  not  far  off.  More 
than  a  million  and  a  half  horses,  cows,  sheep,  pigs,  rabbits 
and  chickens  had  been  distributed  to  give  the  peasantry  a 
new  start,  and  six  batteries  of  ten  tractors  each  were  plow- 
ing and  harrowing  steadily,  with  six  more  similar  batteries 
to  come  shortly,  while  already  thirty  of  the  poisoned  cis- 
terns, 265  of  the  wells  and  twenty  important  ponds  had 
been  sanified.    All  this  in  one  district  in  five  months! 

The  French  mind  has  an  attachment  to  the  soil  entirely 
foreign  to  our  experience.  Not  even  bombardment  can 
always  drive  the  French  peasant  from  his  ancestral  acres; 
he  clings  to  his  tiny  glebe  with  a  tenacity  which  seems  to 
us  both  foolhardy  and  nonsensical.  With  my  own  eyes  I 
have  seen  peasants  working  calmly  in  their  fields,  seem- 
ingly indifferent  to  the  murder-music  of  the  shells  flying 
over  their  heads.   Paradoxically  enough,  once  the  peasant 


EECONSTRUCTION  183 

is  dislodged,  it  requires  more  than  material  things  to  bring 
him  back  and  reroot  him  in  his  proper  sphere.  There  was 
but  one  way  apparent  for  its  accomplishment:  to  bring 
back  the  Mayor  of  his  town,  and  establish  at  least  the 
phantom  of  his  commune. 

Since  to  the  peasant  mind  the  commune  is  the  extension 
or  expansion  of  his  own  family,  what  more  natural  than 
that  he  is  eager  to  return  to  his  home  when  he  knows  he 
will  find  the  Mayor  and  his  family  already  there — housed, 
perchance,  in  a  wet  cellar  or  a  former  stable,  but  there, 
and  ready  to  give  him  the  paternal  advice  and  scoldings 
and  unflagging  encouragement  he  feels  he  has  a  right,  as 
a  son  of  France,  to  expect?  The  very  last  thing  an  Amer- 
ican farmer  would  want  would  be  a  meddlesome  official  to 
pry  into  what  he  was  doing  and  worry  him  with  advice; 
nor  would  he  be  greatly  encouraged  by  such  efforts.  The 
Frenchman,  however,  pitches  in  with  a  will,  his  neighbors 
hear  the  Mayor  and  Big  Jim  and  their  families  are  back, 
and  before  any  one  quite  realizes  it,  all  of  the  town  that 
can  possibly  get  back  have  returned.  But  how  pitiful  a  tale 
the  figures  tell- — 250  of  the  original  seven  hundred  inhabit- 
ants have  come  back  to  their  native  Vrely,  three  hundred  to 
Sermaize,  four  hundred  to  Lagny,  fifteen  of  the  220  to  pretty 
Folies,  twenty-four  to  Margny-of-the-Cherries,  twenty  of 
the  287  to  Bouchoirs,  only  one  to  Eoiglise !  What  tragedies 
of  death,  of  disappearance,  of  forced  labor  in  captivity  lie 
behind  these  significant  accounts  of  the  repatriation ! 

Ruskin  had  no  vision  of  the  modern  Hun  when  he  wrote, 


184  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

of  past  invasions  of  France:  "Whatever  the  name,  or  the 
manners,  of  their  masters,  the  ground  delvers  must  be  the 
same,  and  the  goatherd  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  the  vine- 
dresser of  Garonne,  and  the  milkmaid  of  Picardy,  give 
them  what  lords  you  may,  abide  in  their  land  always, 
blossoming  as  the  trees  of  the  field,  and  enduring  as  the 
crags  of  the  desert.'^  No;  we  must  look  to  a  twentieth- 
century  German  as  our  prophet.  He  approves  of  the  com- 
plete annihilation  of  conquered  peoples,  but  says :  "To-day 
this  is  physically  impracticable,  but  one  can  imagine  con- 
ditions which  should  approach  very  closely  to  total  destruc- 
tion.'^ 

All  the  organizations  that  are  at  work  are  cooperating 
in  such  a  harmonious  and  judicious  division  of  the  task 
that  France  is  making  tremendous  strides  toward  her  old, 
sane,  normal  life.  On  their  own  part,  the  people  are  mani- 
festing their  heritage  from  the  past — the  Celtic  tempera- 
ment whose  buoyancy  bears  them  bravely  up  in  stress ;  the 
Roman  logic  that  has  enabled  them  to  think  clearly  and  to 
reorganize  their  whole  mode  of  life  on  the  new  basis  made 
necessary  by  losses  and  privations ;  the  Frankish  love  of  the 
soil  and  industry  which  has  rejuvenated  field  and  home 
with  a  swiftness  all  but  incredible. 

Innumerable  civil  organizations  have  sprung  into  exist- 
ence to  complete  the  work  the  Army  began  and  necessarily 
can  not  complete.  Each  one  in  its  own  field,  often  with 
the  slenderest  of  resources,  is  working  miracles :  surveying 
and  establiahing  disputed  boundaries  between  farms  whose 


EECONSTEUCTION  185 

lines  have  been  obliterated,  providing  labor,  advancing  the 
farmers  money  against  the  sale  of  their  expected  crops, 
giving  houses  to  whole  communities  at  a  time,  and  in  gen- 
eral reestablishing  the  social  life  of  the  region  around  the 
solid  bases  of  the  municipality,  the  school  and  the  church. 

One  of  these  organizations,  the  "Fund  for  War  Devas- 
tated Villages,''  showed  me  how  much  an  energetic  and 
determined  woman  can  accomplish  practically  single- 
handed.  The  Honorary  Secretary,  Mrs.  Arthur  H.  Wethy, 
an  American  citizen,  has  performed  the  miracle  of  getting 
ladies  of  different  nationalities  to  work  together,  trans- 
ported quantities  of  clothing  and  food  to  the  needy  villages 
between  Soissons  and  Compiegne,  made  tour  after  tour  of 
investigation  and  inspection,  and  done  the  large  amount 
of  secretarial  work  required  in  the  interim. 

"Oh,  if  you  could  only  get  us  a  motor!"  she  cried  one 
day.  "We  have  the  occasional  use  of  one  rickety  old  ma- 
chine ;  and  the  Government  lends  us  an  Army  machine  once 
in  a  while,  but  if  we  only  had  our  own,  we  could  go  four 
times  as  fast  and  far.   Can't  you  get  us  one  in  America?" 

To  my  own  unbounded  astonishment,  I  succeeded  in  se- 
curing a  fine  new  car — and  the  War  Department  refused  it 
transportation  because  of  the  pressure  of  military  necessi- 
ties !  The  headquarters  of  the  Society  are  at  32,  rue  Tait- 
bout,  Paris.  They  lack  funds,  clothing,  blankets;  they 
lack  everything,  and  beg  America  for  more,  and  more,  and 
yet  more  of  everything  to  meet  the  pressing  need. 

One  of  the  largest  single  undertakings  has  been  that  of 


186  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

the  English  Society  of  Friends,  the  British  Quakers.  Fight 
in  battle  they  would  not;  but  they  are  spending  themselves 
freely  in  the  reeonstitution  of  that  long  and  horribly  deso- 
lated section  covered  by  the  "front"  where  the  battle  of  the 
Marne  turned  the  edge  of  the  invader's  sword.  The 
Friends'  headquarters  are  in  the  obliterated  town  of 
Tugny-et-Pont,  in  the  little  valley  between  the  Somme 
and  the  Canal  of  ^t.  Quentin,  where  they  cleared  a  large 
area  of  rubbish  and  mines,  and  began  their  work  of  grace 
by  first  of  all  getting  a  residence  of  sorts  ready  for  the 
Mayor,  so  that  his  return  might  bring  its  natural  conse- 
quence of  general  repatriation. 

Already  they  have  reared  more  than  six  hundred  tempo- 
rary houses  throughout  their  region,  distributed  more  than 
a  thousand  pairs  of  chickens  and  hares,  12,000  packets  of 
clothing,  2,500  beds,  and  in  innumerable  ways  helped  more 
than  thirty-five  thousand  persons  in  282  different  villages. 
In  addition,  they  have  given  the  peasants  128,000  francs' 
worth  of  seeds  and  manure,  agricultural  machinery  and 
garden  tools.  Their  maternity  hospital  has  not  only  brought 
to  light  more  than  four  hundred  babies,  but  it  attends 
them  afterward,  when  the  conditions  in  which  their  par- 
ents are  still  forced  to  live  threaten  the  new  lives.  Their 
endeavor,  in  a  word,  has  been  to  build,  not  only  for  the 
present,  but  for  the  future  as  well.  Truly  the  Friends  of 
England  are  friends  of  France  I 

There  is  other  reconstruction  going  on  in  France  to-day, 
reconstruction   more    kindly,    more    important    than    the 


Five-year-old  boy,  of  Northern  France,  whose  left  hand  was  cut  off 
by  one  of  the  barbarians  just  before  the  German  retreat 

Photographed  by  Mrs.  Arthur  H.  Wethy,  an  American  and  the  Honorable 
Secretary  of  the  Funds  for  Devastated  Villages 


Cup^iishi  1917,  Kodel  &  Herbert 

Ruined  Reims  and  its  Cathedral.   The  city  is  on  fire 
from  incendiary  shells 


Cathedral  at  Nieuport 


[RECONSTRUCTION  187 

building  of  new  houses,  or  even  than  restoring  the  com- 
munal life.  It  is  a  form  of  reconstruction  that  reaches  no 
mere  narrow  belt  of  country,  like  the  Devastated  Region, 
but  extends  its  beneficent  work  from  Dunquerque  to  Mar- 
seilles, from  Brest  to  Nancy.  It  is  the  rehabilitating  of  the 
mutiUs,  the  men  who  have  come  through  the  fire  perma- 
nently maimed.  Go  out  into  the  highways  and  byways  of 
France  and  see  them.  Look  at  the  carriageman  who  stands 
at  the  door  of  your  hotel,  his  breast  medaled,  one  sleeve 
pinned  below  the  decorations.  See  that  taxi  driver  skil- 
fully manipulating  a  Noah's  Ark  of  a  machine  with  a 
wooden  foot.  Why  are  the  crutches  standing  behind  the 
pair  of  yonder  municipal  or  police  functionary;  why  does 
that  Breton  sailor  still  in  his  naval  uniform,  wear  his  hair 
woman-long,  and  brushed  down  over  one  eye  and  the  whole 
side  of  his  face?  Arms,  legs,  eyes,  faces,  features — ^how 
can  these  be  reconstituted?  How  are  the  men,  when  the 
surgeons  have  done  their  kindest  and  best,  to  be  saved  from 
the  fate  battle  would  impose  upon  them  by  this  mutilation 
- — ^how  saved  from  themselves  ?  Can  it  be  done  ? 

It  can!  It  is  being  done  every  day.  The  world  knows 
already  in  considerable  detail  the  indefatigable  efforts 
France  is  making  to  re-educate  these  men  who  have  given 
their  own  bodies  to  the  torture  for  her  sweet  sake.  It 
knows  how  every  art  and  science  have  been  brought  into 
play  to  fit  the  victim  of  the  barbarian  for  a  useful  part  in 
the  reconstituted  society  of  to-morrow.  The  trades  and 
professions  are  being  recruited  from  the  mutiles  who,  once 


188  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

their  interest  in  living  is  reawakened,  grasp  at  the  oppor- 
tunity to  retain  their  self-respect  with  the  eagerness  of  the 
drowning  clutching  at  straws.  The  blindman  makes  a  mar- 
velously  keen-fingered  masseur — able  to  help  restore  his 
fellow  mutiUs.  Men  who  did  nothing  but  manual  labor 
before  their  mutilation  have  been  well  schooled  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense,  then  taught  telegraphy,  shorthand,  tjrpewriting 
beside,  and  put  to  work  without  delay.  Even  the  armless 
have  been  re-educated  and  put  into  occupations  where  their 
false  hands  are  not  an  insuperable  obstacle.  One  unfortu- 
nate, who  lost  sight,  smell,  taste  and  hearing,  has  blos- 
somed out  as  an  author  with  a  cheery  philosophy ! 

To  save  the  mutiU  and  defeat  the  profiteer  who  would 
exploit  him,  while  at  the  same  time  causing  no  strikes  or 
other  industrial  disturbances,  is  a  problem  that  for  more 
than  a  year  has  had  the  attention  of  the  Ministry.  The 
question  is  not  easy  of  solution,  but  an  approach  has  been 
made  by  the  suggestion  of  the  parliamentary  socialist  group 
that  each  employer  throughout  the  country  be  compelled 
to  employ  a  certain  percentage  of  his  hands  from  among 
the  mutiUs  at  a  wage  to  be  determined  upon  by  suitable 
autliorities;  the  inauguration  of  a  National  Placement  Bu- 
reau working  side  by  side  with  the  National  Re-education 
Office ;  the  distribution  of  the  muUUs  throughout  the  coun- 
try in  such  a  way  as  to  provide  them  all  with  a  reasonable 
living  without  upsetting  local  conditions ;  and  the  coopera- 
tion on  non-partisan  lines  of  every  chamber  of  commerce, 
association   patronale,   and   workmen's   syndicate.     (The 


EECONSTKUCTION  189 

same  thing  is  going  on  in  England,  with  equal  results ;  and 
in  Canada,  where  not  one  of  the  fourteen  thousand  mutiles 
thus  far  received  from  the  front  lacks  a  job.) 

In  a  word,  France  is  laying  the  foundations  for  the 
after-war  days  by  learning  how  the  bustling,  important 
American  corporations  get  things  done  not  only  quickly, 
but  well;  learning  the  value  of  intensive  effort,  the  value- 
lessness  of  her  traditional  red  tape.  And  if  perchance  in 
some  things  she  is  solving  timely  questions  by  taking  purely 
temporary  measures  to  keep  her  world  amove,  regardless  of 
the  true  solution,  she  knows  full  well  that  they  are  tempo- 
rary; and  to-morrow,  when  she  has  had  time  to  wipe  the 
bloody  sweat  from  her  eyes,  she  will  astonish  us  anew — as 
she  astonished  us  at  the  Marne — ^by  displaying  her  genius  in 
a  new  role  and  developing  a  national  efficiency  in  economic 
reconstruction  that  will  go  far  toward  refitting  her  to  as- 
sume her  former  role  as  the  banker  of  civilization. 

Standing  clear,  a  marble  figure  iagainst  a  black  curtain, 
apart  from  all  the  appalling  loss  of  life,  far  beyond  all  the 
other  immemorial  destruction,  is  the  loss  of  the  beloved 
Cathedral  of  Eeims.  Its  universal  appeal  of  beauty  and 
sentiment  makes  its  loss  not  a  loss  to  the  France  alone 
which  created  it,  but  to  the  whole  world.  Brought  forth 
in  that  most  creative  of  all  the  creative  centuries,  the  glori- 
ous thirteenth,  it  marked  the  soaring  crescendo  of  the 
Gothic — the  noblest  example  of  the  noblest  and  most  truly, 
nationally  interpretative  type  of  architecture  mankind  has 


190  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

been  able  to  produce  since  the  days  of  the  vast  Doric 
temples  of  Greece.  It  rose  above  the  smoky  old  city  a  per- 
fect gem  of  architecture,  reared  as  the  supreme  offering  of  a 
people  which  felt  its  chief  end  to  be  the  glorifying  of  its 
Creator. 

Not  another  structure  in  France,  secular  or  religious, 
has  the  meaning  of  this  Cathedral.  Almost  from  the  day 
it  was  consecrated,  the  Kings  of  France,  with  but  very  few 
exceptions,  were  crowned  within  its  glorious  chancel.  In 
that  sense,  it  was  the  cradle  of  the  nation.  The  very  life 
of  France  was  given  new  vitality  and  fresh  impetus  in  the 
greatest  coronation  of  all  when,  in  1429,  Joan  of  Arc,  the 
triumphant  maid  of  the  angelic  visitants  and  visions,  stood 
there  before  the  great  altar  and  saw  Charles  VII  crowned 
as  King.  And  so  the  vast  church,  a  beneficent  white  spirit, 
brooded  above  the  city  that  huddled  about  its  soaring  walls 
and  towers  for  more  than  seven  centuries,  the  most  preg- 
nant period  in  the  life  of  France.  It  saw  the  dawn  and 
culmination  and  wane  of  the  Renaissance ;  it  was  unmoved 
while  America  was  found  and  half  won  and  lost;  it  wit- 
nessed the  ambitious  plans  of  the  Napoleonic  Era  and  the 
Empire;  its  beauty  remained  undimmed  and  untouched 
through  the  bitter  struggle  that  culminated  in  the  separa- 
tion of  State  and  Church,  within  our  present  memories. 

Nothing  but  Kultur  could  harm  it;  Kultur  has  done  its 
worst.  The  shells  came  howling  over  from  the  distant  hills 
in  1914,  and  they  have  kept  coming  ever  since.  The  towers 
are  shot  through  and  through.    The  great  roof  is  gone. 


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ORDER 

To  the  People  of  Liege 

The  population  of  Andenne,  after  making  a  display  of 
peaceful  intentions  tow'ards  our  troops,  attacked  them  in 
the  most  treacherous  manner.  "With  my  authorization,  the 
General  commanding  these  troops  has  reduced  the  town  to 
ashes  and  has  had  110  persons  shot. 

I  bring  this  fact  to  the  knowledge  of  the  people  of  Liege 
in  order  that  they  may  know  what  fate  to  expect  should 

they  adopt  a  similar  attitude. 

General  von  Bulow. 
Li6ge,  22nd  August,  1914. 


RECONSTRUCTION  191 

Statues  and  moldings  and  delicate,  fragile  traceries,  gro- 
tesques and  ornaments  have  been  shot  away.  Within,  the 
fire  of  the  incendiary  shells  has  wiped  out  all  that  elabo- 
rate magnificence  of  woodwork  and  decoration  that  made  it 
a  consecrated  marvel.  The  windows  lie  in  splintered  frag- 
ments on  the  floor,  mingled  in  shining  protest  with  the 
charred  debris  of  the  woodwork.  The  huge  pillars  that 
support  the  crossing  threaten  at  any  time  to  give  way  and 
let  the  walls  crumble  in  to  complete  the  ruin. 

Never  was  there  grander  manifestation  of  the  Gothic 
ideal  than  that  triple  western  portal,  about  whose  lofty 
doors  a  goodly  company  of  more  than  five  hundred  saints 
and  angels  and  personages  waited  in  their  cloistered  niches 
to  welcome  the  believer  to  the  Presence  within.  To-day 
protecting  sandbags,  ten  feet  thick  and  thirty  feet  high, 
are  piled  against  the  beheaded,  mutilated  figures  and 
fagade,  to  hold  them  safe — and  in  the  very  closeness  cf 
their  protection  are  disintegrating  the  stone  with  the  accu- 
mulated moisture  of  the  passing  seasons. 

There  has  been  idle  talk  in  both  France  and  America 
about  restoring  the  Cathedral.  There  is  even  a  fund  in 
Chicago  to  be  devoted  to  that  purpose  when  the  war  shall 
end.  Restore  it?  Thiiik  of  those  matchless  thirteenth-  and 
sixteenth-century  windows,  built  up  laboriously,  lovingly, 
of  glass  which  filched  the  spectrum  from  the  heavens ;  glass 
of  crimson,  of  gold,  of  blue,  of  green;  bits  of  heaven 
wrought  into  jewels  for  the  delight  of  man;  glass  the  se- 
crets of  whose  manufacture  have  been  lost !  Think  of  those 


192  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

spirited  statues,  and  ask  yourself  if  the  twentieth-century 
artisan,  who  works  by  the  union  scale  with  one  eye  on  the 
clock,  can  sit  before  an  insensate  block  of  stone,  and,  by 
taking  measurements  and  using  his  tools,  batter  out  a 
figure  informed  and  vivified  by  the  same  beauty,  the  same 
spirituality  as  the  statue  executed  by  the  thirteenth-century 
worker,  who  toiled  from  dawn  to  dusk,  whose  heart  lay  at 
the  tip  of  his  chisel,  and  who  worked,  not  for  any  paltry 
wage,  but  because  he  felt  himself  to  be  glorifying  the  God 
who  made  him ! 

"No !  Eeims  can  not  be  restored.  Preserve  what  can  be 
preserved  of  the  ancient  structure.  But  in  the  name  of 
God  keep  the  spot  where  it  stood,  the  debris  of  its  ruin, 
hallowed  and  intact !  Build,  if  necessary,  a  new  Cathedral 
on  some  other  spot,  but  take  no  thought  for  a  restoration 
as  idle  and  empty  as  it  would  be  purely  mechanical.  As 
soon  restore  heat  to  the  moon ! 

The  Cathedral  is  not  dead,  can  not  die.  Far  from  being 
a  soulless  body  from  which  the  spirit  has  fled,  it  became,  in 
the  moment  the  first  German  shells  burst  upon  and  within 
it,  a  new,  more  glorious,  spiritual  temple,  reared  in  the 
hearts  of  all  mankind;  the  most  revered  Cathedral  in  the 
world,  one  that  can  never  die  even  though  it  be  reduced  to 
a  formless  heap  of  broken  stone. 

It  is  an  everlasting  monument  to  both  Christianity  and 
KuUur, 


CHAPTER   XIII 

FEENCH  SCHOOLS  IN  WAR  TIME 

Many  of  the  facts  from  which  this  chapter  was  prepared 
were  obtained  through  the  courtesy  of  an  official  of  the  French 
Foreign  Office  in  Paris,  Professor  X — ,  of  the  Sorbonne.  If  I 
have  used  somewhat  freely  data  taken  from  the  various  pub- 
lications and  documents  with  which  my  professorial  friend 
kindly  loaded  me,  I  know  the  teachers  and  investigators  to 
whose  unusual  opportunities  and  indefatigable  efforts  the  ma- 
terial is  due,  will  be  glad  to  know  that  their  labors  have  found 
sympathetic  audience  in  an  allied  country. 

^^JoHNNY !    Oh,  Johnny !    Time  to  go  to  school,  dear." 

*'Oui,  Maman;  oui,  firaisT 

"Let  me  Bee,  now — .  Yon  have  your  books,  and  yonr 
slate ;  and  your  luncheon — .  Oh,  child — ^where  is  your  gas- 
mask?" 

Tor  months,  so  Madame  R assured  me,  that  was  the 

formula  she  went  through  with  petit  Jean  every  morning 
before  he  started  through  the  shell-torn  streets  of  Reims 
for  the  astonishing  school  the  authorities  provided  for  the 
children  of  the  beleaguered  city  down  in  the  famous  wine- 
caves,  far  below  the  reach  of  the  terrible  shells  of  the 
hoches. 

Think  of  it,  you  American  fathers  and  mothers  of  tender 
children,  six,  eight,  ten  years  old !  Picture  your  little  Mary 
or  Jack,  if  you  can — but  you  can  not ! — starting  off  gaily, 

193 


194  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

as  scores  of  other  children  did,  ready  to  run  if  the  frightful 
whistle  ripped  overhead,  ready  to  thrust  each  little  head 
into  the  stifling  gas-mask  that  alone  could  save  the  delicate 
lungs  and  heart  from  the  lacerating  fumes  of  the  gas- 
shells  ! 

And  think,  too,  what  your  sensations  would  be  if  your 
little  Mary  were  brought  home,  as  was  Madame  R ^'s  lit- 
tle Violette,  bleeding  and  unconscious,  but  miraculously 
unhurt.  Petit  Jean  explained  to  me  graphically,  with  all 
the  unconscious  dramatic  force  of  a  child. 

^'Oui,  Monsieur,  grace  to  God,  my  little  sister  escaped  the 
boche  that  time."  He  laughed  as  he  gestured  the  disap- 
pointment of  the  grim  German  cannoneers  at  being  cheated 
of  their  prey,  especially,  as  he  put  it,  with  a  curiously  old 
and  cynical  shrug,  since  the  prey  was  a  plump  little  girl, 
who  would  "bleed  so  hard" ! 

"We  ran  along  the  street  most  dangerous,  and  nothing 
happened — not  an  ohus,  not  a  single  shriek  of  one  going 
over  our  heads.  We  got  into  a  safe  street.  No  shells  had 
fallen  there  at  all.  Then  suddenly,  pJiwirrrr — houm!  One 
fell  in  our  safe  street.  Mon  Dieu,  it  was  so  quick !  I  was 
almost  across  the  street  when  I  heard  it.  Violette  was  in 
the  middle,  right  behind  me.  The  obtLS  fell  about  twenty 
feet  away.  It  struck  one  end  of  a  rail  of  the  trolley  track, 
just  as  Violette  stepped  on  the  other.  Oh,  mon  Dieu,  how 
she  flew  through  the  air — thirty  feet.  Monsieur,  on  the  end 
of  that  so-lively  rail!  Bang!  against  the  stone  wall  she 
went.    She  was  dead  I   I  knew  she  was  dead.    But  a  kind 


FRENCH    SCHOOLS    m   WAK   TIME       195 

gentleman  picked  her  up  quickly.  We  ran  home  with  her. 
Oh,  les  hoches — ces  sales  hetesT  he  cried  fiercely,  and  beat 
the  air  with  his  fists.  That  harsh  epithet  for  the  Hun, 
heard  in  France  only  in  moments  of  utter  exasperation, 
came  strangely  from  his  sweet  little  mouth. 

Violette  smiled  up  at  me  shyly,  and  bade  me  feel  the  big 
scar  on  her  hard  little  head,  ^Vhere  the  wall  hit  me. 
Monsieur !" 

Would  to  God  I  might  put  into  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
those  who  read  this  hopelessly  inadequate  sketch  a  tithe  of 
the  emotion,  the  reverence,  the  profound  admiration  I 
have  felt  in  studying  the  work  of  the  French  school-teachers 
on  and  behind  the  front,  and  the  insouciant  bravery  of  the 
children,  whose  recitations  have  been  so  often  interrupted 
by  the  sour  grumble  of  the  guns  and  the  eclat  of  bursting 
shells  close  at  hand ! 

How  strange  that  the  first  drop  of  French  blood  shed  in 
the  onslaught  of  barbarism  against  culture  should  have 
been  that  of  a  teacher !  The  very  first  man  to  fall  was  the 
mobilized  school-teacher.  Corporal  Andre  Peugeot,  of  the 
Forty-Fourth  Infantry,  treacherously  shot  down  at  Jon- 
chery  on  Sunday  morning,  August  second,  twenty-four  hours 
before  war  was  declared.  Since  then  how  many  other  teach- 
ers, men  and  women  alike,  have  fallen  under  the  deadly 
wave  of  Kultur!  Yet  the  educational  life  of  the  country 
was  never  more  passionately  awake,  more  self-thrilled  with 
the  tremendous  importance  of  its  task,  or  better  able  to 
grasp  opportunity  both  firmly  and  with  subtle  wisdom. 


196  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

War  was  formally  declared  August  third,  during  the  sum- 
mer vacation,  when  the  schools  were  naturally  closed.  A 
month  later,  the  time  drew  near  for  their  reopening;  but 
how  was  it  to  be  done,  when  the  men  teachers  were  prac- 
tically all  of  them  with  the  colors?  A  teacher  can  not  be 
picked  up  on  the  street  as  a  ditch-digger  may.  Then  some- 
body had  a  happy  flash  of  memory.  The  conscription  laws 
allow  '^^indispen  sable  workers"  to  be  retained  at  their  shops 
and  works.  Who  could  be  more  indispensable  than  a  teacher  ? 
*'We'll  have  them  back !"  was  the  cry.  But  the  teachers 
themselves  had  something  to  say.  To  a  man  they  refused 
to  come  back,  declaring  it  to  be  not  only  their  duty  but 
their  right  to  keep  their  places  in  the  ranks. 

Though  the  men  did  not  come  back,  the  schools  opened, 
with  numerous  young  women  as  substitute  teachers.  Many 
of  them  were  mere  children  themselves,  girls  totally  with- 
out experience.  Often  they  were  sent  far  from  home,  into 
unusual  surroundings.  Yet  in  almost  every  case  their  in- 
nate good  sense  and  the  exhilaration  of  the  circumstances 
carried  them  triumphantly  through  every  difficulty. 

The  secondary,  or  higher,  schools,  if  compelled  to  forego 
experience,  at  least  required  age  and  education  in  their 
teachers.  To  the  call  for  help,  men  from  every  walk  in 
life  came  forward,  "each  to  his  calling."  Mathematics  were 
the  special  province  of  engineers,  chemistry  and  physics  of 
the  druggists,  Latin  of  the  lawyers  and  magistrates  who 
in  peaceful  times  drowsed  or  bickered  among  their  tradi- 
tions and  ordinances.    Even  the  politicians  gave  a  willing 


FEENCH    SCHOOLS    IN   WAR   TIME       197 

hand ;  and  feeble  old  ex-teaehers,  useless  for  soldiering  and 
the  strenuous  fight  for  bread  of  civil  life,  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  help.  Many  an  old  fellow  previously  desiccated 
and  shelved  was  galvanized  into  comparative  youth  by  the 
vivifying  spark  of  war.  Belgians  also  lent  their  aid.  Not 
many  in  number,  they  were  yet  strong  in  scholarship  and 
eager  to  work.  Early  in  that  first  year  of  the  war,  some 
of  the  greatest  of  these  Belgian  savants  were  occupying 
chairs  in  French  universities  and  technical  schools  where, 
until  that  time,  a  foreign  professor  was  undreamed  of. 
Others  of  humbler  accomplishments  were  glad  to  teach  in 
any  school  offered,  and  the  courtesy  France  showed  by 
taking  them  in  was  repaid  by  their  excellent  work  in  many 
a  place  vacant  until  their  advent. 

The  task  of  the  school  authorities  was  rendered  doubly 
difficult  by  the  lack  of  proper  buildings.  When  school 
should  have  opened  in  1914,  almost  every  one  of  the  nor- 
mal schools  as  well  as  more  than  two  thousand  public 
(elementary)  schools  were  in  use  by  the  Army  as  hospitals, 
barracks  and  storehouses.  Difficulty,  however,  only  in- 
creased ardor.  With  both  teachers  and  buildings  lacking, 
the  school  year  was  none  the  less  begun. 

What  makeshifts  there  were !  The  French  smile  at  them 
now,  but  there  is  a  certain  misty  tenderness  in  the  smile. 
Every  building  that  could  house  a  school,  from  Palaces  of 
Justice  to  ^^palaces"  for  '^movies,"  from  private  houses  to 
cafes,  was  pressed  into  service.  The  first  contact  between 
teachers  and  pupils  was  electrical.   Only  France  mattered. 


198  WITH   THEEE    AEMIES 

Everjrthing  else  for  the  moment  was  subordinated  in  teach- 
ing and  learning  the  functions  of  the  country,  the  proofs 
of  its  civilization  and  its  hopes.  The  white  heat  of  an 
aroused  patriotism  fused  everything  into  that  mold.  In 
many  a  school  the  children's  ardor  was  kept  burning  clear 
by  the  simple  inscription  over  the  absent  teacher's  chair : 

'To  the  memory  of ,  our  master,  dead  upon 

the  field  of  honor. 
Do  your  duty  as  he  has  done  his." 

But  though  the  war  was — and  still  is,  at  the  present  writ- 
ing— the  dominant  note,  it  was  made  to  serve  a  vivifying 
purpose  in  teaching  subjects  usually  far  removed  from  its 
destructive  activities:  civics,  for  instance.  The  children 
were  easily  made  to  see  that  a  town  councilor,  a  mayor, 
any  one  of  their  so  often  pursy  and  self-conscious  officials 
of  the  days  of  peace,  was  really  a  man  inside  his  official 
skin,  a  stalwart  guardian  spirit  for  all  his  tubbiness  and 
red  nose,  an  inchoate  hero  instead  of  a  mere  political  job- 
ster.  Little  Burgomaster  Max,  of  Brussels,  with  his  wiry 
beard  and  gimlet  eyes,  was  a  favorite  illustration  of  the 
civilian  whose  patriotism  and  knowledge  of  his  responsi- 
bility gave  him  courage  to  defy  the  armed  German  swag- 
gerer and  bully. 

The  children  were  not  permitted  to  forget  the  State ;  and 
the  State,  on  its  part,  did  not  forget  its  children.  Whenever 
it  was  possible,  the  young  mohilises  were  given  permission, 
literally  between  actions,  to  return  to  their  schools  to  be  ex- 


PRENCH    SCHOOLS    IN"   WAR   TIME        199 

amined  and  graduated.  On  June  30,  1915,  the  Dean  of  the 
Faculty  of  Nancy  received  a  letter  from  an  anxious  father : 

"I  am  sending  you  my  son,  who  came  this  morning  from 
the  trenches,  where  he  has  passed  a  terrible  week,  which 
prevented  him  from  preparing  properly  for  the  examina- 
tions. Please  put  him  through  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment, so  that  he  will  not  have  to  remain  away  from  the 
squad  he  commands  any  longer  than  absolutely  necessary." 

The  young  Sergeant  returned  to  his  post  the  fifth  of 
July.  Two  days  afterward  the  Dean  received  another  note 
from  the  father : 

"Many  thanks  for  having  passed  my  dear  son  so  quickly. 
At  six  o'clock  this  evening  he  was  killed  at  Bois-le-Pretre." 

So  died,  on  July  6,  1915,  Sergeant  Marcel  Ferrette,  aged 
eighteen,  Bachelor-of- Arts-to-be. 

Of  course,  the  spectacular  thing  all  through  this  war  has 
been  the  schools  scattered  along  the  different  fighting 
fronts,  sometimes  within  a  mile  of  the  advanced  trenches. 
The  teaching  went  steadily  on  with  the  shells  and  ballets 
finding  their  billets  in  the  schoolhouses  themselves.  Only 
a  great  epic  could  paint  the  picture  in  its  truly  heroic  col- 
ors. In  the  Marne  a  group  of  children,  during  one  exam- 
ination, was  entirely  wiped  out  by  a  sudden  rain  of  shells. 
At  Saint-Die  the  Rector  suspended  the  Young  Women's 
College  one  afternoon,  and  the  next,  at  the  hour  when  the 
girls  usually  left  the  building,  a  shell  burst  in  the  front 
door  and  practically  demolished  the  structure.    A  school 


200  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

in  the  Meuse,  still  open,  was  smashed  into  fragments — ■ 
fortunately  on  Sunday — ^but  one  teacher  was  killed.  A  girl 
teacher  at  Paissy  (Aisne)  kept  her  little  school  in  a  cave, 
where  she  was  surprised  by  a  bombardment.  Grouping  her 
children  behind  her,  for  an  hour  she  closed  the  entrance 
against  the  explosions  and  bits  of  shell  with  her  own  body. 
Amazingly  enough,  she  was  not  even  scratched,  they  say, 
though  some  of  the  ragged  shell-splinters  flew  past  her  and 
buried  themselves  in  the  children's  benches. 

Only  seven  secondary  schools  were  closed  along  the  front 
line:  Arras,  Soissons,  Saint-Di6,  Pont-a-Mousson,  Sainte 
Menehoulde,  Verdun  and  Reims.  It  seemed  like  giving  a 
victory  to  the  enemy  to  close  them,  and  it  was  not  done 
until  the  teachers  themselves  granted  it  was  dangerous  to 
keep  them  open  another  moment.  Dangerous!  Bethune, 
for  instance,  during  the  eighteen  months  following  the  dec- 
laration of  war,  was  bombarded  no  less  than  fifty-eight 
times,  yet  the  schools  went  right  on. 

"I  won't  leave  my  school  until  it  threatens  to  fall  on  my 
head !"  "I  will  stay  at  my  post  until  the  shells  drive  me 
out!"  "I  am  only  a  woman,  but  the  shells  won't  hurt  me 
any  more  than  th6y  do  the  men !"  These  are  mere  examples 
of  the  attitude  most  of  the  teachers  took,  many  of  them 
not  only  going  daily  through  perilous  zones  to  their  schools, 
but  also  shepherding  their  pupils  back  and  forth. 

Most  picturesque  of  all  were  the  schools  in  the  cham- 
pagne caves  of  Reims.  In  October  of  1914  it  was  impos- 
sible to  open  schools  in  the  city  because  violent  bombard- 


TEENCH    SCHOOLS    IN"   WAR   TIME       201 

ments  were  an  almost  daily  occurrence.  In  December  a 
young  woman  teacher  came  to  Monsieur  Octave  Forsant, 
the  local  inspector,  and  suggested  opening  a  garderie  (day- 
nursery)  down  in  the  champagne  caves  to  take  care  of  the 
littler  children,  and  keep  them  out  of  both  mischief  and 
danger.  The  scheme  worked  so  well  that  M.  Forsant  was 
glad  to  see  it  develop  into  a  number  of  regular  schools.  The 
Mumm  Cave  had  the  honor  of  receiving  the  first,  which 
was  named  the  Ecole  Joffre.  Others  followed,  two  of  them 
named  respectively  for  King  Albert  I  of  Belgium  and  for 
General  Dubail. 

In  one  of  his  reports  M.  Forsant  said ;  "What  a  spectacle 
revealed  itself  as  I  first  went  through  these  caves !  Belgian 
refugees  and  children  of  France  were  mixed  together  in 
them  side  by  side  with  soldiers.  Many  of  the  unlucky  peo- 
ple of  the  Ardennes,  come  down  from  Mezieres  and  Eethel, 
and  those  Eemois  who  had  temporarily  left  their  bom- 
barded houses,  had  crammed  themselves  in  with  the  school 
children.  They  had  brought  their  beds,  their  cooking 
stoves,  their  lamps,  lanterns  and  candles.  Sweat  and  smoke 
mingled  with  the  smells  of  cooking  and  the  steamy  effluvia 
arising  from  drying  clothes.  An  acrid  odor  took  one  by  the 
throat.  The  women,  for  the  most  part  badly  coiffed  and 
half-dressed,  with  children  clinging  to  their  skirts,  came 
and  went  through  these  vast  corridors,  happy  indeed  to 
have  found  any  asylum  from  the  storm  of  steel  raging  over- 
head. In  such  a  place,  so  little  suited  to  educational  pur- 
poses, I  hesitated  long  before  agreeing  to  open  schools.  But 


202  WITH   THEEE   AEMIES 

it  had  to  be  done,  and  on  January  22  (1915),  wishing 
not  only  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  children,  hut 
to  relieve  their  parents  also,  I  opened  the  Joiire  School."* 

The  calm  of  the  children,  during  even  the  most  violent 
bombardment,  was  astonishing.  They  seemed  no  more 
iafraid,  even  with  shells  bursting  directly  overhead,  and  the 
town  itself  falling  to  pieces  or  burning  up,  than  did  the  de- 
voted teachers,  who  considered  their  personal  danger  a 
email  thing  compared  with  their  opportunity  to  render  a 
service  to  France  as  precious  as  it  was  far  beyond  the  usual. 
In  1916  there  were  thirty-six  teachers  in  these  cave  schools 
of  Reims  alone,  handling  a  total  enrolment  of  five  hundred 
children.  On  July  seventh  of  the  same  year,  out  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  children  registered  for  the  exami- 
nation for  a  certificate  (the  equivalent  of  a  grammar-school 
certificate),  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  were  present. 
The  year  before  there  were  only  thirty- five ! 

The  little  Remois  continued  in  the  cave  schools  until 
March  30,  1917.  They  had  more  attention  paid  to  them 
than  perhaps  any  others  in  France.  Correspondents  visited 
them,  ladies  brought  them  bonbons,  the  great  champagne 
houses  who  had  offered  them  the  hospitality  of  their  caves, 
adopted  them,  and  each  year  gave  them  Christmas  trees 
and  "movie"  shows.  Their  crowning  entertainment  came 
on  January  28,  1917,  when,  after  a  violent  bombardment 
in  tlie  morning,  one  of  the  Army's  cinematograph  operators 


♦My  translation :  M.  Forsant's  report  In  the  Bivue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  September,  1917. 


FEENCH    SCHOOLS    IN   WAR   TIME       303 

made  a  remarkable  film  of  the  children  at  their  under- 
ground play,  of  a  gas-mask  drill,  of  a  drill  to  evacuate  the 
school,  and  of  the  women  teachers  guiding  their  charges 
back  to  their  homes,  through  streets  in  which  the  shells 
were  still  falling. 

In  keeping  the  educational  traditions  of  France  alive 
during  these  stormy  days,  the  work  of  the  schools  was  only 
begun.  Much  that  has  been  accomplished  in  aid  of  the 
soldiers  could  not  possibly  have  been  done  without  the  work 
of  these  intense,  patriotic  school  boys  and  girls.  Some  of 
them  adopted  soldiers  and  wrote  to  them  regularly.  Some 
paid  for  educating  penniless  orphans.  Here  a  class  adopted 
an  orphaned  girl,  and  saved  up  religiously  so  as  to  give  its 
charge  a  chance  at  future  happiness  by  providing  her  even- 
tually with  the  indispensable  dot  or  marriage  portion. 
There  a  school  adopted  a  whole  regiment,  and  sent  it  every- 
thing needed,  from  tarred  boots  to  safety-pins.  And  some 
adopted  wounded  foilus,  caring  for  them  with  the  tender- 
ness of  the  little  brother  for  the  big.  Many  a  school,  too, 
raised  funds  for  the  wounded,  each  child  giving  its  pit- 
tance proudly  and  regularly.  Others  helped  by  forming  in- 
numerable "Bands''  or  Societies  each  named  for  its  chosen 
work  like  the  ''Oeuvre  (Work)  of  the  Weekly  Egg,"  in  which 
each  member  provided  an  egg  a  week  for  the  hospitals ;  the 
^'^ork  of  the  Pocket-Money";  the  "Work  of  the  Two  Vege- 
tables;" and  in  various  parts  of  the  country  the  children 
gathered  and  stored  the  "Seeds  of  Autumn"  in  preparation 
for  the  spring  planting. 


204  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

Of  what  was  done  this  side  of  the  front  we  have  ample 
details  in  the  Government  reports,  but  only  scraps  of  news 
filtered  through  that  grim  gray  German  line  which  still 
snakes  its  ugly  length  all  the  way  across  north  France.  Bit 
by  bit  an  idea  of  the  makeshifts  and  heroisms  of  the  teach- 
ers of  Longwy,  Roubaix,  Turcoing,  Douai  and  other  towns 
can  be  pieced  together.  Here  the  Germans  detained  the 
women  teachers  because  they  were  accomplishing  much 
good  for  their  townsfolk !  What  the  real  reason  was  may  be 
only  too  clearly  revealed  if  the  melancholy  list  of  Ger- 
many's diabolisms  is  ever  compiled.  In  other  towns  the 
women  teachers  were  ordered  out  as  houche  inutile  (useless 
mouths) — consumers  of  valuable  food.  To  the  last  woman 
they  refused  to  go,  clinging  to  their  schools  heroically  in 
the  face  of  almost  certain  abuse.  Many  a  school  in  these 
invaded  towns  was  taught  almost  in  whispers;  taught  the 
French  language,  literature,  history,  tradition,  with  a  fer- 
vor, as  a  French  writer  puts  it,  "which  resembled  the  fervor 
usually  reserved  for  the  sacred  texts.  And  the  children 
performed  their  duties  as  if  they  were  consecrating  them- 
selves by  acts  of  faith'' — ^as  indeed  they  were ! 

French  temperament  and  heroism  were  no  less  in  con- 
tinual evidence  in  the  prison  camps  in  Germany  itself.  The 
author  of  UEcole  et  lea  Guerre,  himself  a  Professor,  relates 
that  at  grim  old  Saxon  Zwickau,  where  many  civilians  have 
been  imprisoned,  two  women  teachers  from  the  Ardennes 
found  themselves  among  seventy  child  prisoners  ranging 
from  three  to  fourteen  years  of  age.  What  could  they  do. 


% 

1 

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1 

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1 

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1 

1 

Verdun.    Classroom  in  a  primary  school  in  the  Cathedral  quarters 


Reims.   School  children  on  the  Street  of  the  Martyrs 


A  sight  of  the  ruins  at  Nauvrone  Vingre — Aisne 


i. 


^^^*i^<Q5 


'-'X:. 


^n 


^^^-^ 


Once  the  main  street  of  the  village  Craoune — Aisne 


FRENCH    SCHOOLS    IN   WAR   TIME       205 

in  a  prison  camp  ?  First  of  all,  they  braved  the  command- 
ant, and  wrung  from  him  an  unwilling  permission  to  estab- 
lish a  school.  Somehow  they  discovered  a  few  books.  A 
German  petty  officer,  in  peace  time  a  teacher  of  French, 
got  them  three  grammars.  A  bit  of  linoleum  served  as  a 
blackboard,  and  each  child  was  provided  by  some  hook  or 
crook  with  a  slate  and  a  bit  of  chalk.  In  other  camps  of 
civilians,  similar  efforts  were  made,  and  the  teachers  even 
went  so  far  in  some  as  to  establish  debating  societies  for 
themselves  of  the  sort  they  had  enjoyed  at  home.  Nobody 
but  the  French — or  perhaps  Americans! — ^would  have  had 
the  spirit  in  such  surroundings  to  argue  profoundly  *^the 
best  way  to  insure  a  large  school  attendance" ! 

What  a  different,  and  how  much  cheerier,  tale  Alsace 
tells !  Not  much  of  it  is  French  even  yet,  after  nearly  four 
years  of  struggle;  but  what  there  is  is  mightily  encourag- 
ing, and  the  day  when  the  tricolor  displaced  the  hated  red, 
white  and  black  was  a  gala  day  indeed.  School  opened  first 
in  Massevaux,  a  charming  little  old-world  backwater  which 
was  still  lulled  by  the  distant  growling  of  the  guns  behind 
the  mountain  when  I  visited  it  last  September.  I  talked 
with  adults  and  children  alike  all  over  the  repatriated  sec- 
tion. The  adults  were  still  shy,  reserved,  not  sure  of  them- 
selves; unable  to  realize  as  yet  that  they  might  speak  the 
tongue  of  their  infancy  without  having  a  brutal  Wacht- 
meister  throw  them  into  jail  or  beat  them  over  the  head 
with  the  flat  of  his  saber.  Though  the  older  children 
sometimes  lapsed  into  the  gutturals  of  their  long-hated 


306  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

masters,  the  natural  resiliency  of  youth  generally  made 
them  forgetful  of  even  the  immediate  past,  and  enabled 
them  to  revel  in  their  present  freedom.  But  to  the  littler 
children,  born  shortly  before  or  since  the  war  began, 
French  is  the  native  tongue,  and  they  speak  it  easily,  if  in 
a  somewhat  rough  and  colloquial  way.  I  was  informed 
that  already  there  are  five  thousand  pupils  in  the  new  Alsa- 
tian schools,  with  more  than  a  hundred  teachers  of  both 
sexes. 

The  graduation  exercises  for  several  towns  of  the  vicin- 
ity, held  at  Rougemont-le-Chateau,  near  Belfort,  in  1915, 
were  exceedingly  interesting.  The  graduating  class  was  re- 
quired to  write  an  essay  in  French — ^^^Describe  your  own 
town,  and  state  why  your  little  country  is  so  dear  to  the 
heart  of  every  Frenchman."  The  judges  included  the  ven- 
erable Rector  of  Besangon,  a  Professor  from  Paris,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Superior  Council  of  Public  Instruction,  local 
teachers  and  soldier-teachers.  At  times  with  tears  blind- 
ing their  eyes  as  effectually  as  any  hoche  gas-shells,  they 
passed  upon  the  sixteen  papers  turned  in — and  solemnly 
filed  them  as  "historic  documents"  in  the  Museum  of 
Pgedagogy ! 

Here,  too,  in  Alsace,  the  children  are  doing  work  besides 
their  lessons.  In  Massevaux  I  copied  a  poster  displayed  all 
over  the  village,  addressed  "Aux  Enfants  des  Ecoles — To 
the  Children  of  the  Schools,"  a  free  translation  of  which 
runs :  "The  Army  needs  comfort  this  winter.  Gather  fag- 
gots everywhere,  dry  them  carefully,  and  bring  them  in 


FEENCfl    SCHOOLS   IN   WAR   TIME       207 

five-kilogram  bundles  to  the  authorities  the  fourteenth  and 
twenty-ninth  of  each  month,  and  you  will  contribute  to  the 
national  defense." 

Not  all  the  mobilized  teachers  were  given  the  oppor- 
tunity to  display  their  heroism  on  the  actual  front  or  in 
the  prison  camps.  Many  of  them,  as  need  arose,  became 
foresters,  bill-posters,  public  printers,  soup-kitchen  direct- 
ors, managers  of  bakeries,  laundries  and  post-offices;  in 
fact,  there  was  little  they  did  not  do.  The  diary  of  one 
such  a  teacher  tells  a  vivid  story  of  his  patriotic  busy-ness : 
5-8  A.  M.,  work  at  the  Town  Hall,  listening  to  public  com- 
plaints, issuing  passes,  permits,  etc.;  8-9  A.  m.,  report  to 
and  consultation  with  the  Mayor;  9-12  noon,  same  as  from 
5  to  8  A.  M.,  with  the  addition  of  visits  to  near-by  towns 
to  help  there  in  the  same  way;  noon  to  1  P.  M.,  luncheon 
and  rest;  1-3  p.  m.,  same  as  morning;  4-5  p.  m.,  distribu- 
tion of  materials  to  the  bakers'  workers. 

"Between  times,"  he  wrote,  "I  help  at  the  telephone 
switchboard,  act  as  an  assistant  guard,  copy  official  dis- 
patches, check  over  the  accounts  of  the  bakery,  sign  a  per- 
fect raft  of  papers  by  the  Mayor's  orders,  and  keep  so  gen- 
erally occupied  that  my  day  ends,  as  a  usual  thing,  between 
ten  and  eleven  at  night."  No  wonder  an  Inspector  said  of 
teachers  like  these :  'They,  too,  have  made  a  campaign !" 

The  story  of  quiet,  unassuming,  heroic  accomplishments 
I  have  tried  to  tell  has  a  special  interest  for  America.  Our 
relations  with  France  have  always  been  not  only  friendly 
but  intimate.    And  to-day  we  stand  with  the  French  in 


208  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

Europe  as  Lafayette  and  Rochambeau  once  stood  with  us 
in  America.  And  on  our  part  we  can  learn  the  lesson  of 
their  war-time  schools,  with  all  it  means  of  entire  consecra- 
tion and  invincible  self-abnegation  under  more  dreadful 
conditions  than  humanity  has  ever  seen  before ;  though,  if 
"God  still  reigns"  and  protects  these  United  States,  as  they 
have  been  providentially  protected  in  all  their  marvelous 
progress  of  a  hundred  and  forty-two  years,  it  will  never  be 
necessary  for  us  to  inscribe  upon  the  diplomas  of  any  of  our 
school  boys  or  girls  anything  like  the  lines  that  appeared 
upon  each  diploma  presented  at  Reims  in  1915 : 

"The  student, ,  hy  his  work  and  his  faithful- 

ness  in  following  the  courses,  notwithstanding  the 
danger  and  difficulty  of  the  circumstances,  merits  this 
recompense. 

In  a  Champagne  Cave 

The  83 2 d  Day  of  Bombardment 

81st  July,  1915:' 


CHAPTER  XIV 

IN  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS 

Oltmpus  rises  of  necessity  from  the  lowlands;  heaven 
is  heaven  only  because  of  hell.  Alsace  the  lovely,  the 
picturesque;  the  sweet  and  placid  country  the  French 
have  been  so  earnestly  trying  to  win  back  without  laying 
waste,  is  all  the  lovelier  by  comparison  with  that  melan- 
choly district  north  of  Paris  where  hate  had  its  unbridled 
way. 

"Do  you  know  Alsace  at  all?"  inquired  Monsieur  Zhee, 
of  the  Press  Bureau  of  the  Foreign  Office,  as  he  leaned 
back  in  his  chair  and  regarded  me  thoughtfully  a  moment. 

I  acknowledged  that  my  wanderings  had  never  taken  me 
through  the  Vosges  and  the  exquisite  land  of  the  "enfants 
perdus" — the  *^ost  children'' — ^who  have  been  mourned 
steadfastly  for  all  those  barren  years  between  the  forced 
treaty  of  1871  and  the  wild,  mad  dash  that  carried  the 
French  back  into  a  part  of  their  own  in  1914,  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  war.  Now  I  was  to  see  this  thorn  in  the 
heart  of  France  and  the  flank  of  Germany;  and  I  was  un- 
prepared. My  Foreign  Office  friend  began  pulling  books 
from  his  office  shelves. 

^^You  must  read  up  carefTilly  before  you  go,"  he  declared, 
piling  me  with  paper-bound  volumes.   "It  will  be  useless 

209 


210  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

for  you  to  see  what  you  do  not  understand.  You  can  not 
understand  the  feeling  we  cherish  for  Alsace  unless  you 
know  her  history.  This" — he  handed  me  a  bulky  volume 
dealing  with  L' Alsace  a  travers  les  Ages  (Alsace  through- 
out the  Ages) — ^^Vill  give  you  a  general  idea  of  Alsatian 
history  and  feeling;  and  these  others" — heaping  up  half 
a  dozen  or  more  books  and  pamphlets  dealing  with  every 
phase  of  the  vexed  question — "will  help  to  give  you  some 
notion  of  the. country  and  its  people.'^ 

And  I  was  expected  to  chew,  swallow  and  digest  all  this 
between  three  p.  m.  and  eight  A.  m.  next  day ! 

What  an  amazing  people  the  French  are!  Here  was  a 
tremendously  hard-worked,  tired-out  official  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  still  so  thoroughly  Gallic  at  heart,  despite  years  of 
residence  in  the  United  States,  that  he  could  not  bear  think 
an  American — of  whom  he  knew  nothing  and  for  whom  he 
had  no  reason  to  care — should  go  ignorantly  into  Alsace, 
and  perhaps  bring  away  a  wrong  or  an  indefinite  impres- 
sion. As  Professor  of  French  in  a  great  American  Uni- 
versity, Monsieur  Zhee — camouflage  for  the  first  letter  of 
his  name,  if  you  must  have  the  reason  for  his  apparently 
extraordinary  appellation! — ^had  been  the  teacher,  friend 
and  humorous  critic  of  unnumbered  classes  of  Americans. 
He  had  heard  France  call  across  the  seas,  and  though  he 
was  well  beyond  the  military  age,  responded  immediately. 

"Did  you  get  into  the  trenches  yourself?"  I  inquired,  as 
we  chatted  intimately  in  his  little  office,  where  newspapers 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    211 

and  periodicals — he  was  one  of  the  censors — ^lay  by  the 
hundreds. 

He  langhed.  "Indeed  I  did !  Perhaps  th^  thought  me 
too  near-sighted  to  shoot  well.  Maybe  they  thought  the 
exercise  would  do  me  good.  Anyway,  they  kept  me  doing 
nothing  but  digging  ditches  for  eighteen  months.  Phew !" 
he  murmured,  reminiscently,  and  glanced  at  his  hands,  as 
if  he  would  conjure  back  the  blisters  and  callouses  that 
unaccustomed  ditch-digging  had  earned  him. 

In  a  moment  he  was  on  the  Alsatian  theme  again.  With 
true  Gallic  sympathy  and  deftness  he  sketched  the  country 
and  its  beauty,  drew  me  a  vivid  silhouette  of  its  tragic 
story,  hinted  at  the  problems  I  should  find  visible  there, 
saw  to  it  by  adroit  questions  and  suggestions  that  I  drew 
correct  inferences ;  and  then  he  was  off  like  a  swallow  to  a 
little  history  of  the  retired  cavalry  officer  in  whose  company 
three  of  us — an  Italian,  another  American  and  myself — 
were  to  explore  the  unknown.  The  pressure  of  routine 
work  ahead  of  him  made  no  difference.  On  his  desk  a 
tremendous  heap  of  unopened  mail  clamored  for  atten- 
tion— "Yes,  I  shall  be  here  this  evening.  One  can  read  so 
much  more  quietly  at  night,''  was  all  he  said,  when  I  sug- 
gested that  his  time  was  valuable,  and  staggered  out  under 
the  burden  of  my  newly  acquired  but  as  yet  unassimilated 
knowledge  of  Alsace  in  ten  volumes. 

I  thought  of  Monsieur  Zhee  as  I  pored  over  those  books, 
and  began  to  understand  the  demonstration  that  had  taken 


212  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

place  in  the  vast  Place  de  la  Concorde  in  Paris.  It  is  stale 
history  now,  of  course ;  most  probably  it  has  been  forgotten. 
But  every  one  who  has  been  there  remembers  the  fine  statue 
of  the  City  of  Strasbourg,  the  mourning  draperies  and 
wreaths  of  immortelles  that  covered  it  for  no  less  than 
forty-three  years.  Prance  was  sharply  criticized  for  that 
furious  rush  into  Mulhouse  and  the  attempt  to  recover 
Alsace  at  a  single  stroke  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
It  seemed  a  proof  of  volatility  and  sentiment  which  could 
not  possibly  accomplish  anything  against  the  material  suf- 
ficiency of  Germany.  In  reality  it  was  a  case  of  the  Sab- 
bath-day rescuing  of  the  sheep  in  the  pit.  The  tumultuous 
acclaim  and  frenzy  of  the  Parisians  when  they  swarmed 
into  the  Place,  tore  down  the  mourning  streamers  and  im- 
mortelles from  Strasbourg's  statue,  and  replaced  them 
amid  shouts  and  tears  with  the  tricolor  and  brilliant  living 
flowers,  voiced  the  profoundest  sentiment  in  the  national 
heart.  It  was  no  mere  hotspur  act  of  revenge  upon  Ger- 
many for  her  brigandage  of  1871.  It  was  the  only  thing, 
the  patriotic  thing,  the  honorable  thing,  to  strive  to  give 
back  to  Alsace  the  nationality  she  had  claimed  and  loved 
for  more  than  two  hundred  years.  So  the  French  could 
not  have  done  anything  else  than  invade  impetuously,  even 
though  they  were  immediately  driven  out  of  most  of  what 
they  had  taken.  The  joy  over  the  little  section  set  free  from 
the  hated  German  yoke  was  enough  to  fire  the  whole  coun- 
try, to  give  to  its  efforts  to  win  more,  to  win  all,  that 
amazing  steadfastness  of  purpose  and  unconquerable  fight- 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN"  MOUNTAINS    m 

ing  power  that  has  astounded  not  only  the  Germans  but 
every  one  else. 

DoUeren,  Oberbruch,  Niederbruch,  Weegschied,  Bitsch- 
weiler — ^the  trip  seems  like  a  dream,  impossible  in  France 
with  those  names !  Yet  before  me  lies  the  black  and  white 
record  of  every  mile  of  it  in  my  notes,  from  the  damp, 
gloomy,  fog-brushed  morning  when  I  walked  half-way 
from  my  hotel  to  the  railroad  station  trying  to  find  a  taxi, 
to  the  night  when  we  returned,  and  emerged  from  the 
cavernous  black  shadows  into  the  crowded  Paris  streets. 

First  came  the  long  railway  journey  from  Paris  east- 
ward across  the  loveliest  part  of  central  France.  The  train 
was  more  than  half  filled  by  men  in  uniform,  the  station 
platforms  gray  with  "horizon  blue"  that  gathered  thickest 
below  the  square  white  flag  with  the  red  cross  that,  at  each 
large  station,  hung  outside  the  doorway  to  its  little  emer- 
gency hospital,  whose  lone  nurse  would  swing  along  the 
running-board  of  the  cars,  jingling  cup  in  hand,  and  beg 
with  a  fetching  smile  for  the  ''Croix  Rouge  et  nos  llesses/* 
On  the  way  down  to  Belfort  I  dropped  a  franc  in  one  such 
cup,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  smiling  "Merci,  mon  Colonel 
Americain!"  though  I  wore  no  uniform.  On  the  way  back, 
the  same  cup  received  a  five-franc  note — I  could  not  afford 
to  remain  a  mere  Colonel ! — and  this  time  the  response  was 
warmer  still — "Merci!  Merd  mille  fois,  mon  General!" 
The  Italian  correspondent,  a  former  Lieutenant  in  Italy's 
heroic  Army,  incapacitated  for  further  military  duty  and 
now  serving  a  string  of  Milanese  newspapers,  regarded  the 


214  "WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

five  sous  in  his  hand  sourly  as  the  smiling  cup  approached 
him,  dropped  them  in,  and  snapped  at  me  in  Italian: 
''Generale!  Per  hacco,  coi  miei  cinque  soldi,  non  sono  piu 
die  caporale!  (General!  By  Jove,  with  my  five  cents,  I'm 
only  a  Corporal !)"  Yet  he  was  a  good  fellow,  his  outburst 
camouflage  to  cover  his  regretful  inability  to  give  more 
generously. 

The  American  grinned  at  me  and  suggested:  "Give  her 
five  more,  and  she'll  make  you  a  Field  Marshal  or  an 
Ambassador !" 

"We  sped  past  Melun  and  Troyes,  Chaumont  and  Yesoul, 
through  that  rich  vine  country  where  even  the  black  and 
fetid  breath  of  war  has  not  been  able  to  dim  the  beauty 
or  halt  the  industry  that  gives  the  region  its  charm.  As 
we  came  into  the  broad  plateau  where  Belfort  lies,  swept 
about  by  fields  glowing  with  the  tan  of  summer,  we  caught 
glimpses  here  and  there  of  Fritz's  activities — ''souvenirs 
du  hoche/*  our  Captain  smiled :  a  stable  with  its  slate  roof 
shattered  by  a  bomb,  the  smeared  black  ruin  of  what  had 
been  a  farmhouse,  or  a  haystack  no  longer  a  haystack  but 
a  brittle  ash-pile. 

France  is  both  very  considerate  of  and  generous  with  her 
official  guests.  The  motor  cars  at  our  service  were  hand- 
some limousines  painted  the  conventional  blue-gray,  not  at 
all  adapted  for  the  hard  mountain-climbing  we  were  to  do, 
but  vastly  more  comfortable  than  any  touring  car  could  be 
in  those  chilly  Vosges  heights.  Posted  prominently  inside 
each  car,  and  fastened  also  to  the  dash,  where  the  driver 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    215 

could  not  but  see  it,  was  a  sign  which  ordained  the  speed 
by  both  day  and  night,  prescribed  certain  other  rules  re- 
garding lights  and  roads,  and  ended  with  a  warning  to 
"conserve  the  essence.'^  Our  silent  soldier-drivers  obeyed, 
too,  and  though  the  road  out  of  Belfort  ribboned  away  flat 
and  straight,  with  hardly  any  traffic  at  all  to  impede  a  fast 
run,  they  held  to  the  twenty-five-mile  pace  allowed  all  the 
way  up  to  Massevaux. 

It  was  a  supremely  lovely  ride  in  the  waning  afternoon. 
The  road  was  white  and  smooth,  despite  the  traffic  of  war 
that  daily  rolled  over  it.  The  gaunt  old  poplars  bordering 
it  on  either  hand,  the  brilliantly  green  or  golden  fields,  the 
gradually  increasing  altitude  and  consequently  changing 
scenery  as  we  climbed  the  Vosges  foothills,  gave  a  variety 
and  charm  that  made  it  hard  to  imagine  ourselves  directly 
back  of  the  front.  The  farm  wagons  on  the  road  clung  to 
the  center  of  the  way  with  all  their  old  peace-time  per- 
sistence, and  their  peasant  drivers  eyed  us  with  the  familiar 
old  hostility  of  injured  selfishness  as  we  passed — and  repaid 
their  glare  with  a  choking  cloud  of  white  dust ! 

Giromany  the  quaint  came  first,  and  we  felt  ourselves  no 
longer  in  France,  but  in  some  elfin  land  where  everything 
was  small.  The  houses  bore  the  mark  of  French  inspiration 
in  their  dully  gleaming  red  tiled  roofs,  and  the  flowers  that 
clambered  over  fagade  or  side,  dripped  from  the  weather- 
fringed  eaves,  and  caroused  gaily  up  outbuildings  and  over 
stone  walls;  yet  all  had  a  curious  tang  and  personality  of 
their  own,  especially  in  their  snubby  gable-ends.    Wide- 


216  WITH    THREE    AEMIES 

spreading  shade-trees  stretched  their  protecting  arms  across 
the  dooryards,  and  sunny-headed  children  stared  at  ns  or 
called  to  their  busy  mothers  in  a  queer,  guttural  patois  we 
could  not  understand. 

Nothing  but  a  catalogue  of  rural  beauties  and  mountain 
scenery  could  describe  that  ride  as  the  road  swung  to  the 
northeast  up  the  valley  of  the  Rose  Montoise  to  Rierevesce- 
mont,  which  nestled  picturesquely  at  the  top.  Then  the 
valley,  broader,  nobler,  steeper,  of  a  small  affluent  of  the 
river  Doller,  to  Sewen,  a  lovely  old  Alsatian  hamlet  sprad- 
dled across  a  brawling  green  stream.  Some  of  its  walls 
are  bullet-marked;  here  and  there  flame  has  left  its  black 
smudge.  But  how  peaceful  it  was  in  that  summer  sunset, 
with  its  black-capped  old  women  gossiping  beside  their 
front  doors,  its  children  playing  about  beside  the  little 
river  and  in  the  streets,  and  a  couple  of  Missouri  mules 
solemnly  approving  it  all  from  a  mound  where  they  took  in 
the  view  with  placid  eyes  and  occasionally  wagging  ears  as 
they  munched  their  evening  hay. 

Captain  A stopped  the  machines  for  a  stroll  through 

the  village.     The  sight  of  two  civilians  and  the  gray  of 

Signor  S 's  Italian  uniform,  stained  with  his  six  months 

of  fighting,  drew  attention  immediately.  The  children 
gathered  about  us  frankly  curious;  their  elders,  no  less 
curious  but  not  so  frank,  hung  back  a  little.  Staff  cars  did 
not  often  stop  in  Sewen  without  a  reason,  and  the  town  is 
too  close  to  the  front  not  to  be  cautious  and  have  a  very 
lively  memory.    But  our  Captain  should  have  been  an 


IN  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    217 

ambassador.  In  three  minutes  he  had  the  children  cling- 
ing to  him  and  shouting,  and  the  old  folks  crowded  up 
close,  telling  him  all  about  their  simple  lives. 

As  we  turned  back  toward  our  cars,  loath  to  leave  such 
a  placid  beauty  spot,  a  very  feeble  old  man,  tottering  along 
on  a  thick  cane,  straightened  himself  as  well  as  he  could, 
saluted  with  old-time  precision,  and  smiled  at  us.  Cap- 
tain A returned  the  courtesy  with  fine  dignity.    In  the 

old  man's  buttonhole  was  the  green  and  black  ribbon  of 
'70.  A  veteran!  Yes,  he  admitted,  he  was  of  the  — th 
Hussards,  and  what  a  hardship  that  he  could  not  fight 
now!  Those  hoches — ah!  If  he  were  only  thirty  years 
younger !  But  he  had  given  four  sons ;  that  was  something, 
of  course,  but  somehow  the  youngsters  did  not  seem  to 
have  the  spirit  we  used  to  have  in  'seventy,  when  a  fight 
was  a  real  fight,  and  men  could  see  one  another.  Nowadays 
— bah!  He  waxed  passionate  as  he  talked,  forgot  his  age 
and  used  his  stick  in  fiery  gestures  instead  of  leaning  on  it. 
We  listened  closely,  but  without  understanding  his  thick 
speech — ^he  would  bitterly  have  resented  being  told  he  had 
acquired  quite  a  Teutonic  accent  in  his  forty-three  years 
of  angry  captivity! — when  he  proudly  flung  out  his  cane 
toward  an  exceedingly  disreputable  tricolor  that  seemed  to 
mourn  its  disrepute  from  a  near-by  window. 

Captain  A shot  out  his  wrist  and  glanced  at  his 

watch.  '^We  must  be  off,"  he  said,  in  his  crisp  Oxford 
English,  shook  hands  with  the  veteran,  and  waved  us  toward 
the  cars,  with  a  smile  so  misty  we  knew  something  was  com- 


218  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

ing.  As  He  halted  beside  the  nearer  one,  he  pointed  back  to 
the  veteran,  who  stood  watching  us  from  the  other  side  of 
the  stream. 

*^*^You  saw  the  flag — ^the  dirty  old  flag  of  France? 
Parbleuf  He — that  old  fellow — saved  it  from  capture  in 
1870.  He  hid  it.  He  sewed  it  inside  his  mattress.  He 
slept  on  it  for  more  than  forty-three  years.  When  we  took 
the  town,  he  ripped  open  the  mattress  and  flung  it  out  to 
welcome  us  in!^'  The  Captain  muttered  something  under 
his  breath  that  would  have  been  pious  profanity  in  Eng- 
lish, and  looked  away  an  instant.  When  he  turned  back  to 
us  he  said:  "That  is  only  one.  There  are  scores  of  them 
— ^hundreds!  Hidden  forty  years  from  German  spies  and 
treachery  under  floors,  in  mattresses,  buried,  everywhere — 
every  one  of  them  only  waiting !  Waiting !  Get  in,  gentle- 
men; get  in.  En  avant,  mes  enfantsr  he  added  to  the 
drivers. 

Up  through  Dolleren  the  green  and  quiet,  through  Ober- 
bruch,  where  the  bridge  over  the  mountain  rivulet  quivered 
and  rattled  ominously  as  we  rolled  slowly  across,  past 
Weegschied  and  Kirschberg  and  Niederbruch  we  climbed 
through  the  gathering  gloom,  half  seeing,  half  imagining 
the  veiled  charm  of  each  peaceful  hamlet,  coming  at  last 
to  prosperous,  happy  Massevaux,  or,  as  the  Alsatians  call  it, 
Masemiinster.  The  cars  halted  in  a  big,  earth-floored  square 

full  of  broad-branched  plane  trees,  and  Captain  A 

took  us  up  into  the  administration  building  to  meet  the 
genial  Major-Mayor,  himself  an  Alsatian  born,  and  looking 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    219 

more  like  a  German,  with  his  bright  blond  hair  and  ruddy 
complexion,  than  like  a  Gaul.  But  he  was  French  to  the 
core,  gifted  with  the  keen  logic,  the  ready  humor,  the 
irresistible  spirit  of  his  race.  We  must  dine  with  him  and 
his  staff  in  an  hour  at  Headquarters,  and  meantime.  Cap- 
tain A must  see  that  we  were  comfortably  domiciled. 

"Well,"  remarked  our  American  companion  as  we  came 
down  the  broad  oaken  stair  three  abreast,  "if  this  is  war, 
I'm  for  it  all  the  time !" 

The  Italian  looked  inquiringly  at  me,  and  I  interpreted. 
He  shrugged.  "War  is  always  like  that  with  the  French,^' 
he  observed  a  little  bitterly.  "In  Italy,  once  the  Staff 
passes  you  as  properly  accredited,  you  go  where  you  please, 
when  you  please.  You  see  the  real  thing.  You  can  charge 
with  the  men,  if  you  can  persuade  them  to  let  you.  I  have 
been  with  them  in  the  trenches  as  an  officer,  and  I  have 
been  with  them  in  charges  as  a  correspondent.  This  is  very 
poor  amusement.  I  want  to  see  a  fight.  We  might  be 
Cook  tourists  ?' 

Poor  Signer  S !  His  wound,  the  privations  the  Italian 

Army  has  suffered,  the  poverty  and  desperateness  of  the 
Italian  situation,  had  no  doubt  burnt  into  his  soul  until  he 
was  hardly  responsible  for  his  ungracious  attitude  through- 
out the  trip.  We  Americans  also  wanted  to  see  a  fight,  but 
we  had  no  especial  wish  to  bring  anxiety  to  our  courteous 
guide  and  protector  by  drawing  the  fire  of  the  enemy.  And 
half  an  hour  of  solid  creature  comforts  made  a  distinct, 
though  only  a  momentary,  change  in  Signer  S ^'s  mood. 


220  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

As  we  met  for  dinner,  he  was  beaming  with  satisfaction 
over  his  luxurious  quarters  and  the  kindness  of  his  hostess. 

"You  two  American  gentlemen  will  naturally  wish  to  be 

together/^  Captain  A said  as  we  left  the  administration 

building,  "so  I  will  take  you  up  the  road  a  little  way  to  a 
very  comfortable  place  where  I  am  sure  you  will  be  welcome 
and  contented." 

"Welcome  and  contented"  in  war  time  on  the  very  fringe 
of  the  conflict !  It  was  an  exceedingly  comfortable  country 
home,  built  strongly  of  red  brick  and  set  back:  fifty  yards 
from  the  road  in  a  pretty  little  park  of  shrubs  and  flowers, 
with  winding  paths  and  a  porter's  lodge  smothered  in 
vines  and  roses.  As  we  came  up  the  steps,  the  doors  swung 
open,  and  a  trim  Alsatian  maid  apologized  profusely  in 
perfect  French  for  Madame's  absence.  If  we  would  be  so 
kind  as  to  select  our  rooms,  and  permit  her  the  honor  of 
carrying  up  our  grips — >, 

We  took  a  suite  on  the  second  floor  overlooking  the  gar- 
dens and  the  valley,  hedged  in  by  the  blue  Vosges  hills, 
about  whose  flanks  clung  the  faint  bluish-gray  mists  of 
early  evening.  The  rooms  were  huge,  with  lofty  ceilings 
and  tall,  shuttered  windows  through  which  we  could  step 
out  upon  little  balconies  and  look  off  down  the  halcyon 
vale.  Between  the  two  bedrooms  was  a  washroom  with 
massive  new  twin  basins  and  furniture  such  as  one  sees  in 
the  older  hotels  here  where  bulky  apparatus  is  no  objection. 
Everything  was  clearly  of  German  make — and  hanging  on 
the  clothes-racks  were  several  handsome  German  uniforms 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    221 

bearing  a  Major's  insignia.  Was  the  lord  of  the  manor 
hoclie?  If  he  were,  why  had  he  left  his  uniforms  behind? 
Why  was  his  wife  accommodating  the  French  Army  by 
housing  its  visitors  so  handsomely?  We  went  to  the  ban- 
quet sorely  puzzled. 

Headquarters  House  was  another  such  structure  as  the 
one  where  we  were  quartered,  with  a  big  paneled  dining- 
room  where  about  twenty  of  us  sat  down  to  a  royal  feast. 
It  was  not  that  the  dinner  was  so  extraordinarily  elaborate 
as  that  the  cooking  v.ras  perfection,  the  wines  excellent,  the 
taste  epicurean.  My  place  was  between  the  Major-Mayor, 
who  is  not  only  commanding  officer  of  the  troops,  but  civil 
administrator  and  judge  of  the  district,  and  a  charming 
young  Blue  Devil.  There  were  other  Blue  Devils,  or  Chas- 
seurs Alpins — those  amazing  mountain  riflemen  who  are 
inured  to  every  hardship  and  who  wear  as  their  proud 
insignia  the  rakish,  slouching  heret  instead  of  the  regular 
Army  Tcepi — artillery  both  heavy  and  light.  Staff,  infantry 
and  engineers  around  that  table.  The  small  talk  waxed 
fast  and  furious  of  everything  under  the  sun  but  the  war. 
It  might  have  been  a  private  dinner  at  the  Eitz-Carleton 
in  either  New  York  or  London.  Music,  art,  poetry,  the 
ethics  of  insisting  that  a  West  Point  cadet  should  learn  to 
dance  to  make  him  able  to  handle  balky  soldiers,  the  age  of 
a  certain  ogival  window  in  the  town  hall.  President  Wil- 
son's sense  of  humor!  They  all  came  in  for  lively  discus- 
sion, and  I  lamented  the  inability  of  the  French  language 
to  render  the  delightful  slang  of  the  limerick  the  President 


222  WITH   THEEE    ARMIES 

is  said  to  have  quoted  with  hearty  appreciation.  But  how 
could  the  ablest  French  scholar  Gallicize  "It's  the  folJcs 
out  in  front  that  I  jarf 

Only  when  the  Major-Mayor  and  I  fell  to  discussing 
Alsace  did  the  banter  cease,  and  the  big  table  listen  as  the 
commander  warmed  to  his  favorite  theme.  In  crisp,  bril- 
liant French,  his  face  flushing  with  his  earnestness  and  his 
eyes  two  lambent  flames,  he  swept  the  dishes  from  before 
him  impatiently,  and  built  an  Alsace  out  of  nutshells  and 
crumbs  and  wine  glasses,  explaining,  criticizing,  lecturing. 
Our  Staff  Captain  leaned  forward  in  his  place  across  the 
table  and  listened  like  a  schoolboy  hearing  Gunga  Din  for 
the  first  time. 

"Mon  Dieu — ^the  stupidity  of  the  hocheT  cried  the 
Major-Mayor,  demolishing  a  nutshell  mountain  that  had 
represented  Hartmannsweilerkopf  an  instant  before.  "Bah ! 
To  declare  this  stupid  war  and  risk  his  national  life !  In 
ten,  perhaps  at  the  most,  twenty  years,  he  would  have 
owned  the  world.  His  commerce  was  everjrwhere.  He 
knew  everything.  His  gold  was  buying  him  everything. 
Nobody  was  awake.  Nothing  could  have  stopped  him  if 
he  had  only  been  satisfied  to  go  on  in  the  same  way.  When 
we  awoke,  we  should  all  have  been  his  slaves — France, 
England,  Italy,  Russia.  Yes,  America,  too.  Monsieur. 
Your  country  suffers  from  the  hoche  plague  even  yet !  But 
he  was  born  with  the  sword  in  his  hand.  He  loved  its 
rattle  in  the  scabbard.  He  had  to  use  it.  He  could  not 
wait.    Madness  seized  him  for  blood.    He  must  drink  it. 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    223 

bathe  in  it,  wallow  in  it.  So  he  struck — and  lost  every- 
thing— ^but  blood.  He  has  had  that.  Mon  Dieu,  he  has 
had  that!" 

A  growl  ran  around  the  table.  "So  have  we,  mon  Com- 
mandant F'  exploded  a  pale,  thin  little  Chasseur — the 
hardiest  and  most  daring  of  them  all,  I  learned  afterward. 

Another  growl  answered  him,  but  the  Major-Mayor 
waved  it  down.  "We  have,"  he  assented  gravely.  "But 
Alsace  is  worth  it.  I  speak  to  you.  Monsieur,"  he  went'  on, 
turning  directly  to  me,  "not  only  as  an  Alsatian  but  as  a 
I^renchman.  You  know  a  little  of  our  tiny  country.  You 
have  seen  and  will  see  more  of  its  beauty  and  its  wealth. 
Perhaps  you  know  enough  of  its  dark  story  to  understand 
why  we  Alsatians  love  it,  and  why,  also,  we  love  France. 
France  never  stole  us  from  Germany,  because  there  was  no 
Germany  in  Louis  XIV^s  time  to  steal  us  from !  She  got 
us  by  treaty  from  the  House  of  Austria  in  1648.  But  that 
was  a  long  time  ago.  We  learned  to  love  the  French  char- 
acter, the  French  spirit.  It  struck  a  responsive  chord  in 
our  hearts.  Voild — ^we  became  French — more  French  than 
the  Frenchman!    Is  it  not  so,  gentlemen?" 

The  table  chorused  thunderous  approval  of  his  rendering 
of  history.  "So !"  continued  the  Major-Mayor,  making 
a  heap  of  his  built-up  crumbs  and  shells  again  and  pouring 
them  into  his  champagne  glass,  ^^hen  we  drive  Germany 
out  of  Alsace,  we  are  not  stealing  territory.  Mon  Dieu — we 
are  simply  forcing  a  thief  to  disgorge  what  he  had  stolen 
from   France  in   1871!    Germany   has   tried   to   deceive 


224  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

France  and  the  world  with  nonsense  about  Alsace.  She 
has  tried  to  deceive  us  Alsatians  again  and  again.  Wasted 
effort!  We  obeyed  her  because  behind  her  orders  were 
prison  and  death  at  the  most,  and  petty  martyrdom  at  the 
very  least.  But  think  you  Germany  by  harsh  measures,  by 
stupidity,  by  coercion  and  brutalities,  could  change  in  forty 
years  the  sentiments  that  had  been  growing  for  more  than 
two  centuries  ?'' 

"But,  Major,  what  about  the  plebiscite?  Would  not  that 
decide  once  and  forever  whether  Alsace  is  really  French? 
What  fairer  way  could  there  be  than  letting  the  Alsatians 
themselves  say  whether  they  wish  to  be  a  German  crown- 
land  or  whatever  it  may  be,  or  French  T' 

To  a  man  the  officers  reproved  me  with  one  short,  definite 
glance;  then  each  one  looked  back  at  his  plate  or  at  his 
opposite.   Only  the  Major-Mayor  smiled. 

"Ah,  Monsieur,  you  test  me.  No  way  could  be  fairer  if 
Germany  would  let  the  Alsatians  decide.  But  the  pleb- 
iscite! Mon  Dieu,  Monsieur,  no  plebiscite  is  possible! 
There  are  250,000  Alsatians  who  have  been  forced  into  the 
hoche  armies;  250,000  more  are  no  longer  Alsations  be- 
cause they  have  fled  to  France  and  are  now  Frenchmen. 
There  are  half  a  million  votes  disqualified  at  once.  And 
don't  forget  that  400,000  Germans  have  been  worked  into 
Alsace  as  immigrants.  Even  supposing  Germany  herself 
meant  well,  do  you  suppose  those  individual  Germans  could 
fail  to  intimidate  the  Alsatians?  Do  you  suppose  that  an 
honest  vote  would  be  possible?   Remember  the  wealth  of 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    225 

Alsace-Lorraine:  the  timber  and  phosphate  here;  the  tre- 
mendous mineral  riches  of  Lorraine.  Germany  will  never 
give  up  this  wealth  until  she  is  forced  to  at  the  point  of 
the  sword!  What  she  stole,  she  will  hold.  It  is  for  us  to 
beat  her  to  her  knees  and  make  her  let  go.  And/^  he 
summed  up  triumphantly,  bringing  his  clenched  fist  dowru 
until  the  glasses  leaped  with  his  fervor,  "when  we  win 
back  the  iron  mines  of  Lorraine,  the  hoche  can  never  make 
war  on  this  scale  again  because  he  will  not  have  the  re- 
sources for  making  guns  where  he  must  have  them — inside 
his  own  borders !" 

We  had  our  coffee  and  liqueurs  in  the  adjoining  salon, 
and  the  talk  drifted  into  less  pleasant  channels.  A  Captain 
beside  me  was  glancing  idly  over  a  German  photograph 
album  filled  with  heavy  Teutonic  children,  and  blubbery 
personages  full  of  beer  and  wind  and  whisker.  "Fancy !" 
he  startled  me  by  saying  in  perfect  English.  "We  French 
have  not  hurt  one  thing  in  this  house,  though  it  was  owned 
by  Germans.  We  even  look  over  their  photograph  albums 
with  smiles,  and  keep  the  wretched  piano  tuned.  We  are 
so  simple,  so  droll.   The  hoche  does  more  cunning  things." 

"Cunning  things?"  the  Major-Mayor  repeated  slowly, 
his  face  darkening.  ^^I  do  not  speak  much  English,  but 
enough  to  know  what  you  mean.  I  should  not  call  them 
cunning.    .    .    ." 

The  Captain  laughed.  It  was  a  laugh  that  made  me 
shiver.  His  handsome  face  contorted  into  a  smile  that 
drew  up  his  lips  at  the  corners  and  showed  the  strong  white 


226  WITH   THEEE    AEMIES 

teeth,  but  his  eyes  smoldered  like  the  spark  at  the  end  of 
a  burning  fuse. 

^^But,  my  Major,"  he  protested,  dropping  into  liquid 
French,  "they  are  so  chic.  Their  sense  of  humor  is  so  fine ! 

You  remember  the  house  at  E ,  where  the  officers  had 

their  dinner,  and  after  they  finished  smashed  everything 
in  the  place  but  the  dishes  on  the  table,  and  the  eighteen 
or  twenty  wine  glasses  they  used  as  latrines  and  set  in  a 
row  on  the  mantelpiece  for  us  to  find?  DieuT 

The  Major-Mayor's  florid  face  was  purple.  He  nodded 
slowly,  his  hands  clenching  and  unclenching  as  he  mur- 
mured, so  softly  I  could  hardly  hear  him:  ^'Oui,  oui — 
oKicr  Across  the  room  his  eye  caught  the  glance  of  an 
infantry  Captain  and  summoned  him  over.    ''Mon  vieux, 

have  you  the  pictures  of  that  Lieutenant  H who  was 

shot  near  Mulhouse?  The  one  who  had  the  big  pocket- 
book?" 

"Not  here,  my  Major,"  was  the  answer,  "I  am  sorry,  if 
you  want  them.  I  sent  them  to  Paris.    .    .    ." 

"Never  mind,"  his  superior  replied;  and  to  me:  "The 
cJiic  hoche — I  am  sorry  you  could  not  have  been  with  us 
when  we  found  him.  He  was  a  brave  fellow,  and  when  he 
was  shot  in  a  skirmish,  Captain,  here,  examined  his  body 
to  remove  the  identity  disc  and  his  papers,  to  send  them  to 
his  family.  In  his  breast  pocket  was  a  great  wallet,  almost 
a  portfolio.  In  one  side  of  it  he  had  letters  from  his  wife 
and  children,  pictures  of  them;  beautiful  letters  full  of 
love  and  tenderness ;  beautiful  pictures ;  an  unfinished  let- 


m  THE  BLUE  ALSATIAN  MOUNTAINS    227 

ter  he  had  been  writing  to  his  wife — a  good  letter,  too.  In 
the  other  he  had  gathered  a  collection  of  the  most  obscene 
verses  and  photographs  imaginable.  There  they  were,  face 
to  face,  over  his  heart.  And  he  went  into  action,  knowing 
he  might  be  shot,  and  those  things  found  on  his  dead  body ! 
Ah,  ces  chic  hochesr 

By  this  time  half  the  room  had  gathered  around  us,  and 
our  Staff  Captain  murmured  a  suggestion  into  the  Major- 
Mayor's  scarlet  ear.  He  hesitated,  looked  at  us  foreigners 
— assented.  To  a  splendid  young  Chasseur  Lieutenant  he 
made  a  signal.  The  young  man,  already  scowling  with  his 
memory,  looked  doubly  fierce  as  the  words  poured  forth  in 
a  torrent.  He,  at  least,  had  no  hesitancy  in  telling  the 
world  what  horror  he  had  seen,  what  helpless  shame.  He 
spoke  directly  to  us  Americans,  swiftly,  in  low,  earnest 
tones,  acting  his  story  as  he  told  it  with  strong  gestures  and 
expressions,  his  voice  penetrating  our  very  souls  with  its 
clear,  vibrant  emotion. 

'^It  is  not  much — only  one  of  hundreds  of  such  cases,  no 
doubt,  but  I  saw  it,  and  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  playing 
executioner.  Only,  mon  Dieu,  I  was  too  late  to  save  the 
poor  child.     .     .     . ! 

"The  hoche  had  captured  a  hamlet.  On  its  outskirts 
stood  a  comfortable  bourgeois  home.  It  was  the  type  you 
know  so  well — square — four  rooms  on  the  ground  floor — a 
central  hallway,  two  rooms  to  right,  two  to  left.  The  din- 
ing-room was  in  front.  It  was  night.  "We  crept  up  on  it, 
choked  the  videttes  and  sent  them  to  the  rear.   I  called  my 


228  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

men  together  again.  "We  stole  up  closer.  The  windows  had 
not  been  shaded.  We  could  look  straight  into  the  dining- 
room. 

"Tied  in  their  chairs  sat  the  father  and  mother,  one  at 
each  end  of  the  room.  A  German  soldier  with  fixed  bayonet 
stood  at  each  side  of  the  door,  looking  on  and  grinning. 
The  hoche  officer  had  jerked  the  cloth  from  the  table. 
Everything  lay  in  a  heap  on  the  floor.  On  the  table  he  had 
flung  the  daughter  of  the  house,  and  he — mon  Dieu!  I  shot 
him  there.    ...   I  could  not  wait  to  capture  him —  1" 


CHAPTER  XV 

ALSACE  AND  ITS  PROBLEMS 

From  my  window,  opened  wide  at  eleven  o'clock,  when 
the  banquet  was  over  and  I  stood  in  my  darkened  room 
still  sick  at  heart,  the  mountains  loomed  black  and  forbid- 
ding in  the  background.  They  seemed  the  visible  mani- 
festation of  Germany's  heavy  baseness,  closing  around  poor 
little  Alsace  in  a  cold,  sinister,  unsurmountable  barrier. 
In  the  sky  behind,  soft  as  black  velvet,  the  stars  winked  and 
paled  intermittently  to  the  flashes  of  distant  guns,  whose 
dull  shock  came  faintly,  very  faintly,  from  the  other  side 
of  the  hills,  eleven  kilometers  away.  Below  me  Massevaux 
was  absolutely  black  and  formless,  save  where  some  incau- 
tious spirit  had  failed  to  draw  his  curtains  perfectly,  and 
a  chink  of  light  made  the  surrounding  blackness  all  the 
more  Stygian. 

Morning  brought  us  a  tremendous,  German-style  break- 
fast of  ham,  sausage,  liver  and  eggs  that  would  have  turned 
the  coffee-and-rolls  stomach  of  any  Frenchman,  and  a  hasty 
survey  of  the  town  before  we  resumed  our  voyage  de  luxe 
sur  automobile.  Massevaux  is  typical  of  most  Alsatian  vil- 
lages, with  its  central  square  decorated  by  a  not  unpleasing 
fountain  and  monument,  its  signs  of  inns  and  shops  thrust 
out  at  right  angles  from  the  walls  to  silhouette  their  quaint 

229 


230  WITH   THEEE    AEMIES 

figures  of  rising  suns  and  red  bears  and  white  horses  against 
the  blue  morning  sky.  The  houses  are  all  snub-nosed,  the 
streets  mostly  narrow  and  none  too  light,  but  well  paved 
and  clean.  Already  the  old  German  signs  had  been  hastily 
painted  out  on  most  of  the  shops,  and  their  windows  dis- 
played the  tricolor  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes  everywhere. 
America  may  be  a  name  only,  but  it  is  certainly  a  name  to 

conjure  with  in  Alsace.    I  thought  of  Signor  S 's  dictum 

about  "Cooking  it^'  along  the  front  as  we  stared  like  children 
into  the  strange  shop  windows,  full  of  dolls  in  the  Alsatian 
costume  of  tight  black-laced  bodice,  white  stockings,  scarlet 
skirt  and  huge  black  bow  for  the  hair ;  monstrous  German 
stoves  built  up  of  ornamental  porcelain  plaques,  side  by  side 
with  little  sheet-iron  "chunk-burners"  so  flimsy  they 
hardly  seemed  stoves  at  all;  postcards,  patent  medicines, 
gnarly  looking  fruit ;  bags  of  "grains  of  cereals"  and  hard- 
ware; while  from  the  wet  black  interiors  of  the  cafes  came 
sounds  of  scrubbing  and  splashes  of  dirty  water  as  the 
barkeeper-proprietors  made  ready  for  the  day's  trade. 

Here  and  there  beside  the  tricolor  hung  the  scarlet- 
and-white  of  Strasbourg,  chosen  as  the  Alsatian  flag  when 
the  province  was  seized  in  1871.  If  the  people  had  to  fly 
the  hated  red-white-black  of  Germany,  at  least,  they  in- 
sisted, they  must  have  colors  all  their  own;  and  they  did. 
We  found  an  echo  of  their  enduring  spirit  in  a  tiny  photo- 
graph and  postcard  shop  on  the  main  street.  The  pro- 
prietor, very  "hoche-looking,"  as  he  said  himself,  was  over- 
joyed to  see  some  more  Americans.    He  gave  us  a  voluble 


ALSACE    AND    ITS    PROBLEMS  231 

lecture  on  Alsatian  history  whicli  would  have  made  the 
editors  of  the  printed  histories  rub  their  eyes,  sketched  the 
petty  persecutions  of  the  past  forty  years,  and  explained 
that  he  had  had  not  only  to  pronounce  his  name — ^it  was 
Edouard  Bommer — in  German  fashion — ^but,  for  the  sake 
of  his  growing  daughter,  had  had  to  be  German.  If  he  had 
not  been  so  careful,  ^'so  hocJie/'  in  a  word,  the  girl  would 
have  paid  and  his  business  been  ruined. 

'^But  now,"  he  cried,  slapping  my  companion  so  heartily 
on  the  shoulder  it  nearly  capsized  him  into  a  counter  full  of 
dolls  and  postcards,  ^Ve  are  safe.  We  are  French  again! 
My  daughter  is  in  Paris  to-day,  buying  goods  for  me. 
Voild  r  He  fumbled  near-sightedly  among  the  picture  post- 
cards and  presented  each  of  us  with  the  likeness  of  a  pretty 
young  Alsacienne  in  costume.  "This  is  my  petite,  gentle- 
men. I  beg  of  you,  accept  this  little  souvenir.  You  may 
well  wish  she  were  here,  instead  of  her  stupid  old  father, 
to  make  you  welcome  to  our  Alsace." 

We  accepted  the  cards,  and  when  I  suggested  that  it  was 
rash  to  have  pictures  of  his  own  daughter  on  sale  in  public, 
he  grew  apoplectic. 

"In  German  days — mon  Dieu,  non!  Never  such  a  thing! 
The  first  ofiicer  who  saw  would  have  said  just — 'Bring  her 
put!'  But  now — did  I  not  say,  ^We  are  French  now?'  " 

As  we  brought  our  grips  downstairs  in  the  pHit  chateau 
that  had  been  our  very  delightful  quarters,  we  wondered 
again  about  those  German  uniforms  in  the  big  washroom. 
Our  curiosity  was  satified  with  one  of  those  lightning-flasK 


232  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

glimpses  into  the  heart  of  another  that  are  so  startling. 
Madame  proved  to  be  young  and  charming.  She  regretted 
her  absence  of  the  previous  evening  gracefully,  and  ex- 
changed the  usual  compliments  with  her  strange  and  some- 
what awkward  cavaliers.  As  we  were  leaving,  my  companion 
ventured  a  fortunate  word  of  good  wishes  for  Monsieur  the 
absent.  Madame's  eyes  flashed  and  her  hands  flew  to  her 
breast.  She  made  a  pretty  picture,  framed  in  the  dark 
oaken  doorway,  a  pot  of  yellow  flowers  at  her  feet  and  the 
sun  glinting  in  her  golden  hair  and  blue  eyes. 

"Safe!"  she  breathed,  almost  in  a  whisper.  "He  is  a 
soldier.  I  wish  him  safe,  but  first  I  wish  him  his  duty!" 
She  flinched  a  little  under  our  scrutiny,  added  more  slowly : 
"If  he  must  die,  I  hope  it  is  in  battle.  If  only  they  do  not 
catch  him  1" 

Tliere  was  something  so  tragic,  so  pregnant  in  the  pro- 
noun we  both  jumped.  I  exclaimed:   "They,  Madame?" 

She  came  a  step  forward,  her  blue  eyes  violet  with 
emotion. 

"Did  you  not  know?  Did  no  one  tell  you  of  him?  Until 
1914  he  was  an  officer  in  the  German  regiment  sta- 
tioned here,  a  Major.  He  had  to  be;  every  one  had  to,  to 
be  safe — ^to  keep  his  home  safe.  When  the  war  came,  he" 
— she  stumbled  a  little  ovei  the  ugly  word,  even  though 
spoken  in  a  good  cause — ^"deserted.  He  fled  to  enlist  in  a 
French  regiment.  He  was  made  a  Lieutenant  only — ^he,  a 
Major!  He  is  fighting  somewhere  here,  at  the  front.  To 
die  for  France  is  good.  But" — those  palpitating  hands  flew 


Alsatian  girl  in  native  costume 


ALSACE   AND   ITS    PEOBLEMS  233 

to  her  heart  again — ^^^if  the  hoches,  who  know  him,  catch 
him   .    .    .r 

The  ex-Major's  case  is  that  of  unnumbered  thousands  of 
other  Alsatians,  loyal  to  the  last  drop  of  their  blood  to 
their  beloved  France,  but  compelled — even  more  for  the 
safety  of  their  families  than  themselves — to  pretend,  dur- 
ing the  long  night  of  Teutonic  misrule,  to  be  German.  The 
natural  consequence,  once  the  French  won  their  way  into 
Alsace,  was  suspicion  everywhere.  Who  could  be  sure  of 
anything  when  the  Alsatians  freely  admitted  having  posed 
as  German  to  save  themselves?  What  was  there  to  show 
that  the  loyalty  and  friendship  they  now  offered  their 
French  liberators  was  not  mere  lip-service,  ready  to  stab 
the  benefactor  in  the  back  at  the  first  opportunity?  It 
made  a  tense  and  delicate  situation  which  perhaps  no 
nation  in  the  world  could  handle  so  adequately  as  the 
French.  For  overt  suspicion  and  hasty  condemnation,  they 
substituted  suavity  and  tact;  for  brutal  directness  they 
employed  ceaseless  vigilance  and  secret  scrutiny.  Courtesy 
and  graciousness  replaced  shouldering  and  cursing  and 
saber-rattling.  Who  can  doubt  the  result  ? 

IThe  logical  Frenchman  knows  how  easy  it  is  for  a  man 
to  be  nominally  loyal,  without  being  sincerely  a  patriot; 
how  slight  a  thing  can  turn  such  indifferent  allegiance  into 
active  treason.  Here  a  man  whom  the  French  troops  had 
accidentally  despoiled  of  a  pig,  for  example,  might  continue 
to  be  a  loyalist  if  recompensed  under  the  German  laws  to 
which  he  was  accustomed,  even  though  the  verdict  be  not 


234  WITH   THREE   AEMIES 

entirely  satisfactory;  conversely,  if  his  case  be  decided  by 
a  military  or  even  a  civil  tribunal  working  under  French 
laws  as  yet  Greek  to  him,  he  might  turn  his  back  upon 
Trance  and  wish  himself  once  more  governed  by  the  very 
people  whose  ways  he  hated.  So  French  rule  in  Alsace  has 
progressed  very  cautiously.  The  courts  still  use  the  German 
law  the  people  understand;  the  Army  officers  acting  as 
judges  and  court  officials  act  not  as  soldiers,  under  military 
regulation,  but  as  civil  officials  solely.  The  Army,  too,  has 
made  it  clear  to  the  Alsatians  that  the  reason  they  are  not 
fighting  more  furiously  and  winning  back  Alsace  more 
quickly,  is  that  they  do  not  wish  to  smash  up  the  towns 
more  than  can  be  helped.  In  a  word,  everything  possible  is 
being  done,  and  in  the  gentlest  possible  way,  to  show  the 
ignorant  among  this  timid-fiery,  obstinate-easily-led  people 
that  France  loves  them  as  her  favorite  children  and  wishes 
them  only  good.  And  Alsace  is  responding  heartily. 
French  courtesy  tinctures  the  peasant  bluntness,  and  wher- 
ever one  goes  the  lifted  hat  and  the  cheery  greeting  speak 
volumes  in  themselves,  while  over  the  whole  region  is  an 
atmosphere  of  contentment  and  happiness  that  is  a  joy 
to  feel. 

We  parted  from  Madame  and  her  delightful  house  with 
regret — and  five  minutes  later  forgot  her  completely  in  the 
beauty  of  the  meadows,  sprinkled  thick  with  lavender  cro- 
cuses. France  and  Italy  have  their  red  bonneted  poppies, 
scarlet  spirits  of  the  soil.  But  in  September  Alsace  has  her 
mantle  of  almost  royal  purple,  in  May  her  cloth  of  gold; 


ALSACE    AND    ITS    PEOBLEMS  235 

the  same  flowers,  but  mmhile  dictui  golden  in  spring, 
lavender  in  the  fall.  They  illuminated  the  fields  for  whole 
acres,  seeming  to  catch  and  bring  to  earth  something  of  the 
smiling  skies  above  them.  And  then  a  swift  turn,  and  we 
rolled  past  a  vast  aerodrome  where,  despite  my  pleadings, 
we  were  not  allowed  to  stop;  in  fact,  the  motors  speeded 
a  little  going  by,  and  we  merely  caught  a  fleeting  glimpse 
of  the  hornets'  nest:  the  great  green  hangars,  the  broad, 
flat  field,  the  wicked  little  fighting  planes  marshaled  in 
serried  rows  in  the  open,  ready  to  take  instant  wing  when 
the  telephone  jingled.  Silvery  white  they  gleamed  in  the 
morning  sunshine,  with  the  big  red-white-blue  circles 
painted  on  wings  and  tail  that  proclaimed  their  national- 
ity and  saved  them  from  the  defending  guns. 

The  air  was  moist  and  cool,  aromatic  with  balsam  as  we 
flew  along  the  white  road  winding  up  into  the  hills  through 
the  ever  thickening  forests  of  dark  sapins,  to  the  point  at 
which  the  new  Route  Joff re,  constructed .  since  the  war 
began  for  military  purposes,  branches  away  from  the  old 
roads  and  leads  into  the  mountain  fastnesses  where  the 
guns  make  music  among  the  whispering  trees.  And  what 
a  road  that  is,  to  climb  in  limousines  whose  tremendous 
weight  made  the  engines  labor  until  the  radiators  boiled 
over  furiously.  The  car  I  was  in  had  to  stop  a  dozen  times 
to  cool  off  before  taking  the  next  terrific  grade ! 

Like  the  thing  that  created  it — war — the  Eoute  Joffre  is 
mostly  red,  carved  and  hewn  and  built  up  through  clay  and 
shale.   Here  it  mounts  in  sharp  zigzags  and  hairpin  turns 


336  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

that  fairly  take  one's  breath  and  give  even  the  hardiest  of 
motorists  pause.  I  m3^self  have  driven  over  some  very  dif- 
ficult mountain  roads  in  America,  but  never  had  I  seen  a 
twenty-eight  per  cent,  grade  before — ^\vith  a  hairpin  turn 
in  it,  a  sheer  precipice  on  one  side,  a  sheer  cliff  on  the  other, 
and  so  little  space  the  panting  motor  had  to  take  half  the 
turn  and  then  risk  a  fall  from  the  sticky,  slippery  road  by 
sliding  back  and  slewing  as  it  slid,  to  negotiate  the  rest  of 
the  turn !  That  morning  Signer  S and  I  had  a  car  to- 
gether. He  yawned  occasionally,  or  consulted  a  bottle  of 
dyspepsia  medicine.  When  I  tried  to  stir  his  interest,  he 
replied :  "I've  been  over  the  telef ericas,  14,000  feet  above 
nothing.  This  is  just  a  bad  road !"  I  gave  him  up  after 
that,  and  hugged  the  wonder  of  it  to  myself. 

The  flanks  of  Stauffen  stopped  us,  the  machines  backed 
into  a  niche  hewn  from  the  abrupt  face  of  the  cliff,  and  we 
started  to  climb  the  trail  for  the  "near"  front.  The  cool 
old  forest  was  damp  and  quiet,  save  for  the  occasional  bark 
of  a  squirrel  or  the  note  of  a  bird.  Ferns  and  moss  under- 
foot made  a  soft  carpet  but  hard  climbing,  and  we  were 
glad  to  emerge  at  last  upon  a  rocky  little  grass  plot  at  the 
brow  of  the  hill,  fringed  at  the  edge  with  enough  small 
trees  and  shoots  to  conceal  us  from  the  prying  German 
eyes  in  the  plain  below.  When,  however,  for  the  sake  of  a 
broader  view,  we  stood  for  a  moment  in  an  oriole-like  open- 
ing through  the  forest  growth,  the  artillery  observers  no 
doubt  telephoned  back  to  their  guns  within  a  second  or 
two :  "Staff  officers  and  party  of  three  at  K  96,  section  3, 


ALSACE   AND   ITS   PEOBLEMS  237 

Stanffen.  Two  in  uniform,  two  civilians."  We  moved  into 
cover,  and  no  shells  came  over  in  our  exact  direction ;  not, 
as  our  Staff  Captain  said,  that  the  hoche  did  not  wish  to 
kill  us,  but  because  he  could  not  trace  the  fall  of  his  shells 
accurately  for  the  wood.    "Don't  imagine  he  doesn't  see 

you !"  he  warned,  as  Signer  S went  back  into  the  open 

and  silhouetted  himself  clearly  against  the  sky  while  he 
studied  the  panorama  below  with  his  binoculars.  When  he 
was  ready,  the  Italian  came  into  shelter  again,  with  a  sig- 
nificant look  to  me. 

From  our  height  we  looked  down  to  the  left  upon  the 
quaintest  and  loveliest  of  old  Alsatian  mountain  towns, 
Yieux  Thann,  or  Thann  the  Old,  a  dark  bluish-gray  and 
dull  red  huddle  of  roofs  and  spires  lying  motionless  at  the 
feet  of  the  blue  hills.  A  little  farther  out,  New  Thann — 
held  by  the  loche — rubricked  the  sunny  landscape  in  some- 
what brighter  colors.  Straight  before  us  the  plain  swept 
away  flat  as  a  Texas  prairie  for  miles.  In  the  foreground 
was  Cemy,  the  nearest  German  strongpoint.  Empty  high- 
road, and  railroad  where  no  locomotive  smoked,  no  cars  rat- 
tled, shot  straight  out  into  the  hazy  distance,  with  tall 
poplars  and  other  slender  trees  piping  them  with  green. 
Here  and  there  compact  farms,  with  low,  red-tiled  houses 
and  walled  compounds  sentineled  by  trees  and  shrubs, 
dotted  the  warscape.  Yonder  a  dense  grove,  well  behind  the 
German  lines,  stood  darkly  forbidding  and  mysterious.  A 
hamlet  boasting  a  large  insane  asylum  bulked  big  in  the 
middle  distance.  Far  ofi  toward  the  edge  of  things  loomed 


238  WITH   THREE    AEMIES 

the  great  Forest  of  N'onnenbrTieli,  and  behind  that,  a  low- 
lying  fog-bank  that  hid  Sentheim  and  Mulhouse,  the  Ehine 
and  the  Black  Forest  and  the  Jura  itself  from  even  the 
sharpest  eyes.  But  on  days  when  the  atmosphere  is  clear, 
the  sparkling  ribbon  of  the  Ehine  looks  very  close,  and  the 
Schwarzwald  as  black  and  impressive  on  its  farther  bank, 
under  the  floating  white  and  indigo  crown  of  the  half- 
imagined  mountain,  as  the  fairy  tales  have  always  made  it. 
Cutting  this  lovely  panorama  squarely  in  two  from  riglit 
to  left  in  a  series  of  rough  zigzags  lay  the  front,  the  fire 
trenches,  French  and  hoche.  Twisty  ripples  of  communica- 
tion trench  meandered  off  behind  from  either  side ;  and  be- 
tween the  lines,  a  long,  narrow,  yellow  strip  of  dead  grass 
and  desolation  bordered  by  barbed  wire — No  Man's  Land. 
Here  was  a  real  front,  something  to  stir  the  imagination, 
something  that  looked  like  war;  we  could  even  see  down 
into  the  rearward  of  the  three  lines  of  French  trenches,  and 
with  our  glasses  at  times  distinguish  moving  figures.  An 
occasional  shell  from  a  six-  or  eight-inch  gun  far  in  the 
rear,  landed  somewhere  out  of  our  sight  with  a  dull  Plop ! 
curiously  flat  and  emotionless  compared  with  its  eerie 
shriek  as  it  flew  through  the  air,  over  the  heads  of  the  un- 
concerned farmers,  who  calmly  raked  and  stacked  their  hay 
directly  behind  the  French  lines.  "Cool  nerve"  is  a  phrase 
so  abused  it  has  long  since  lost  most  of  its  meaning  for  our 
sensation-glutted  minds.  But  those  sweating  Alsatian  peas- 
ants who  gave  no  heed  to  the  slow  bombardment  above 
them,  had  the  coolest  nerve  I  ever  saw. 


ALSACE   AND    ITS    PROBLEMS  239 

Close  to  us  in  an  0.  P.  partly  underground  and  partly 
tunneled  through  a  dense  thicket,  unwinking  French  eyes 
kept  ceaseless  watch  upon  the  German  lines,  and  in  a  little 
secret  nest  of  its  own  a  big  French  gun  slept  with  one  eye 
open,  commanding  trenches  and  plain  for  miles  when  it 
chose  to  open  its  black  lips  and  thrust  forth  its  dragon 
tongue.  It  was  not  speaking  that  day ;  neither  were  any  of 
the  German  guns  within  its  reach.  Indeed,  since  the  furi- 
ous combats  which  wrested  Hartmannsweilerkopf  from  the 
German  hands,  the  lines  have  been  very  nearly  stationary. 
Commanding  the  plain  from  the  heights  they  now  control, 
the  French  could  easily  blast  the  Germans  out  of  their 
trenches  and  rush  them  back  a  few  miles.  But  if  they  did 
that,  the  Germans  would  naturally  retaliate  by  blasting  the 
two  Thanns  and  Cerny  off  the  map — ^and  the  French  do 
not  wish  to  have  any  greater  damage  wrought  in  Alsace 
than  is  absolutely  imperative;  not  only  because  damage  is 
costly  to  repair,  but  also  because  of  the  moral  effect  upon 
the  Alsatians.  To  smash  up  towns  and  obliterate  farms  and 
property  is  not  the  most  diplomatic  method  of  winning  the 
affection  and  regard  of  even  a  people  who  consider  them- 
selves the  national  children  of  the  avenger.  The  Germans, 
on  their  part,  do  not  wish  to  smash  up  what  they  consider 
German  property;  consequently  the  fight  in  Alsace  goes 
by  fits  and  starts  when  it  goes,  and  for  the  most  part  is  a 
stand-off. 

Farther  north,  where  our  troops  have  entered  a  sector 
in  Lorraine  and  made  it  lively,  the  same  thing  may  hap- 


240  WITH   THKEE   ARMIES 

pen  that  occurred  up  in  Belgium,  in  a  region  where  the 
Canadians  took  vigorous  hold.  Until  they  came,  the  gen- 
eral situation  had  been  fairly  quiet.  After  they  had  been 
there  a  few  months,  if  you  said  ''^Canadian''  to  a  Belgian 
of  that  vicinity,  he  would  swear  or  spit.  If  you  asked  him 
why,  he  would  wave  his  hand  comprehensively  at  the  deso- 
lation the  Germans  had  made  in  reply  to  the  Canadian  of- 
fensives. "These  damned  Canadians !  Until  they  came,  we 
had  homes.    Look  at  things  now  I" 

Why  must  the  generous  French  in  all  cases  insist  on 
Staff  Officers  and  time  limits  for  visitors?  At  the  actual 
front,  of  course,  that  rule  is  not  only  quite  proper  but  abso- 
lutely essential  for  anything  but  the  work  the  daily  cable 
men  do.  But  at  a  quiet  place  like  Vieux  Thann,  for  in- 
stance, why  could  they  not  let  us  sit  down  for  a  day  or  so, 
to  browse  and  dream,  to  scrape  acquaintance  with  the  peo- 
ple, and  to  make  coherent  notes  ?  I  spoke  of  it  to  our  genial 
conductor.  ""  'Inter  arma  silent  leges/  "  he  quoted,  smiling. 
"It  would  be  all  right  in  some  places  and  with  some  men ; 
but  unfortunately  not  even  all  correspondents  can  be 
trusted  to  display  discretion — and  this  is  war."  I  inter- 
preted to  Signor  S ,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  afternoon  he 

kept  chuclding  to  himself  in  Italian:  "It  is  war!  It  is 
war !'' 

Our  stop  in  Old  Thann  was  merely  an  aggravation, 
though  we  had  time  before  luncheon  to  see  its  beautiful 
church,  an  ancient  Gothic  structure,  very  tall,  with  a  tre- 
mendously high-pitched  ornamental  slate  roof,  above  which 


ALSACE    AND   ITS    PROBLEMS  241 

the  spire  rockets  upward,  slender  and  graceful  as  a  budding 
hollyhock.  One  of  the  innumerable  Alsatian  proverbs 
clings  to  this  spire — 

Le  clocher  de  Strasbourg  est  le  plus  liaut, 
€elui  de  Frihourg  est  le  plus  gros, 
Celui  de  Tlianw  est  le  plus  hecm! 

Strasbourg's  spire  is  vast  and  tall; 

Friburg's  largest  much  of  all; 
But  Thann's,  though  not  so  great  or  higJi, 

The  loveliest  is  beneath  the  sky! 

The  interior  of  the  church  is  very  odd  and  interesting, 
quite  different  from  the  pure  Gothic,  the  lofty-groined  nave 
flanked  to  north  and  south  with  wide  side  chapels  between 
the  buttresses.  The  windows  have  vanished  under  the  pres- 
sure of  war,  most  of  them  f rappees  by  concussion,  some  re- 
moved, all  replaced  with  plain  muslin  fastened  by  wooden 
slats.  The  result  is  that  the  nave,  which  must  have  been 
very  dark  before,  is  now  unusually  light,  and  even  the  side 
chapels  are  completely  visible.  The  different  tablets  posted 
on  the  pillars,  representing  the  Stations  of  the  Cross,  form 
an  illuminating  commentary  on  the  German  spirit.  Every 
line  of  them  is  in  German  lettering  and  German  text,  in- 
stead of  the  customary  Latin.  While  we  were  looking 
around,  children  who  had  followed  us  in,  inquired  of  my 
American  companion,  whose  gray  hair  and  pleasant  smile 

gave  them  confidence,  whether  Signer  S ,  whose  faded 

uniform  they  distrusted,  might  not  be  some  kind  of  a 
boche! 


242  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

At  luncheon  we  decided  against  going  into  the  fire 
trenches  on  Hartmannsweilerkopf,  though  the  Captain  told 
us  we  might;  but  we  could  go  in  only  at  night,  and  we 
should  have  to  stay  in  the  sector  we  entered  until  the  fol- 
lowing night.  None  of  us  wished  to  lose  a  whole  day  in 
such  close  and  uncomfortable  quarters,  and  the  alternative 
suggested,  of  climbing  the  much  higher  Mulkenrain,  and 
looking  down  upon  Hartmann' — so  the  French  abbreviate 
it  much  of  the  time — seemed  more  promising. 

Once  more  on  the  Route  Joffre,  we  ran  swiftly  up 
through  the  valley  of  Thann,  past  an  old  Crusaders'  castle 
on  a  peak  above  the  town,  to  Bitschweiler,  and  thence,  by 
a  soft,  dangerous  road  where  the  white  signs  at  the  steep- 
est grades  read  ''18  Pour  Gent"  ''22  Pour  Cent"  and  once 
"28  Pour  Cent"  to  the  rond-point  for  automobiles.  Thence, 
with  one  of  the  artillery  officers  from  the  crest  of  the  moun- 
tain as  our  local  mentor,  we  climbed  the  road,  we  climbed 
steep,  zigzag  gun-paths,  we  climbed  a  mere  trail  among 
trees,  many  a  one  shot  in  two  without  injury  to  its  imme- 
diate neighbors.  How  was  it  possible  for  any  shell  to  come 
Bailing  through  that  dense  pine  wood  and  hit  only  one  tree  ? 

When  we  emerged  on  top  of  the  Mulkenrain,  almost 
3,700  feet  above  the  sea,  we  found  ourselves  shut  in  com- 
pletely by  the  wettest,  most  blinding  fog  I  ever  saw  on  land. 
It  lay  in  great  banks  that  rolled  and  turned  on  one  another 
like  vast  woolen  blankets,  it  cut  off  the  treetops  below  us, 
it  made  the  steady  booming  of  the  artillery  around  Gerbe- 
villers,  or  Gerbweiler,  sound  muffled  and  hollow.   We  sat 


ALSACE   AND    ITS    PROBLEMS  243' 

down  on  the  wet  grass  and  listened  to  war  stories  while  we 
waited,  on  the  chance  that  the  fog  might  lift.  The  artillery 
Captain,  a  young  Alsatian  with  pink  cheeks  and  golden 
hair  and  a  blue  eye  grown  hard  and  cold  as  a  bayonet,  told 
US  dramatically  of  the  fighting  that  had  wrested  the  in- 
visible Hartmann'  from  the  loche,  Yerdun  itself  witnessed 
no  finer,  loftier  courage,  no  more  desperate  conflict.  There 
was  something  epic  in  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  that 
account  of  the  months  of  furious  combat  up  and  over  the 
mountain  top,  where  France  forced  back  Germany  inch  by 
inch  over  rocks  incarnadined  with  the  choicest  ichor  of 
her  Army,  and  the  forests  fell  away  tree  by  tree  until 
naught  was  left  on  that  battered  peak  but  one  disabled 
survivor. 

And  then  the  fog  began  to  lift.  There  it  was — ^the  lone 
pine  on  the  very  summit  of  Hartmannsweilerkopf,  almost 
six  hundred  feet  below  us  and  half  a  mile  across  the  little 
valley,  tearing  the  blanket  to  ribbons !  Presently  it  stood 
clear,  a  single  beheaded  tree,  its  two  shattered  arms  ex- 
tended in  piteous  appeal,  on  a  tiny,  absolutely  desolated 
island,  with  the  white  surf  beating  about  on  every  side. 
That  was  all.  Impenetrability  closed  over  it.  But  perhaps 
the  fog  would  lift  again.  We  waited  an  hour — two  hours. 
The  four  o'clock  sun  called,  and  all  of  a  sudden  the  fog  rose 
in  a  solid  bank,  collapsed  upon  itself,  doubled  back,  and 
there  was  the  entire  mountain,  shaggy  as  a  satyr  below,  its 
crown  covered  with  boulders,  seamed  with  ragged  furrows, 
thorny  with  short,  jagged  stumps — and  that  one,  terrible 


244  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

tree,  tortured  and  riven,  the  ghastly  monument  to  the  val- 
ient souls  who  had  stood  like  the  trees  about  them  to  be 
mowed  down  by  the  iron  blasts. 

Down  the  valley,  where  the  fog  still  clung,  an  aeroplane 
went  up.  We  heard  the  hollow  purr  of  his  gun — a  French- 
man. A  moment  later  came  a  slower  fusillade — putl-putl- 
putl-put!  It  was  for  all  the  world  like  a  pneumatic  riveter 
on  a  New  York  skyscraper  on  a  thick  day.  And  then  the 
sharp  bark  of  a  "Seventy-seven."  The  hoches  were  after  our 
French  friend.  The  battery  was  very  close — the  shattering 
eclat  of  the  long  shell  seemed  directly  overhead.  The  aero- 
plane duel  kept  steadily  on ;  other  anti-aircraft  guns,  rifles 
and  mitrailleuses  joined  the  chorus,  and  we  scattered  to 
various  vantage  points.  I  stepped  up  on  a  low  stone  wall, 
and  peered  steadily  into  the  mists.  Suddenly  all  around  I 
heard  somebody  slapping  bits  of  board  together — clack  I- 
clach  !-clacJc! 

I  looked  around — ^not  a  sign  of  anything !  The  noises  in- 
creased in  vigor  and  frequency.  The}  became  a  small 
storm.  I  stood  quite  still,  listening  and  watching.  A  star- 
tled cry  from  behind  made  me  turn  cautiously  on  my  pre- 
carious perch.  Our  artillery  Captain  was  racing  toward  me 
over  the  rock-sprinkled  grass,  shouting : 

*'Get  down !  Get  down !  Take  cover !" 

I  jumped  from  the  wall  and  slipped  behind  a  tree  just 
as  he  came  dodging  up  to  me,  his  face  flushed,  his  eyes  se- 
vere. 

"Why  do  you  expose  yourself?"  he  demanded  tartly. 


ALSACE   AND   ITS    PJ»tOBLEMS  245 

*^Don't  you  know  machine-gun  fire  when  you  hear  it  all 
around  you?" 

It  took  me  a  moment  to  get  my  breath.  "Well,  no,"  I 
answered.  "I've  stood  behind  it  often  enough,  but  I  never 
was  in  front  before.    Were  they  potting  at  us  ?" 

"At  lisT  he  exclaimed.  "No!  Monsieur,  those  were 
spent  balls,  falling  harmlessly  from  heaven!"  He  caught 
himself  up  sharply,  changed  tone  and  manner.  "I  think 
we  shall  do  well  to  keep  out  of  sight,  sir.  You  have  seen 
Hartmann',  anyway." 

Down  the  Mulkenrain  we  plunged  and  staggered  and 
slid — graceful  as  marionettes — ^making  harder  work  of  the 
descent  than  of  the  climb,  and  providing  amusement  for 
the  artillerists  who  greeted  us  cheerily  from  their  cam  ou fie 
barrack,  half-dugout,  half-rustic-summerhouse.  And  then 
the  motors,  "conserving"  the  precious  essence  by  running 
on  gravity,  skidded  down  those  frightful  grades  and  angles 
to  Bitschweiler  and  on  to  Thann,  where  we  had  a  royal  din- 
ner served  amid  joyous  clamor  in  a  little  hotel  with  care- 
fully darkened  windows  and  doors,  by  an  Alsacienne  with 
the  figure  and  face  of  a  Juno,  a  radiant  smile,  and  the  as- 
tonishing appellation  of  Phinele. 

The  genuineness  of  the  French  Army's  democracy  ap- 
peared when  a  young  Chasseur  private  whom  our  American 
companion  knew,  was  invited  to  dine  with  us.  His  fellows 
drank  a  roaring  toast  to  "Jean's  capable  stomach"  as  he, 
distinctly  abashed  by  the  presence  of  our  Staff  Captain, 
came  over  and  sat  down.    The  evening  went  off  with  a 


246  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

merry  swing  amid  clouds  of  cigarette  smoke  and  a  deal  of 
noise — ^toasts,  singing,  rough  soldier  jokes  and  banter  of 
the  Junoesque  Phinele.  If  this  sounds  bacchic,  the  fault  is 
mine.  When  it  was  all  over,  everybody  had  tucked  away 
about  two  glasses  apiece  of  the  very  mild  local  wine.  Your 
true  Frenchman  does  not  need  alcohol  to  fire  his  powdery 
gaiety  and  sense  of  humor:  he  can  wax  genial  over  dried 
frog's-legs  in  the  trenches  under  fire ! 

We  motored  up  to  Kruth  by  night,  running  without 
Headlights,  as  the  road  was  in  view  of  the  German  observers 
most  of  the  distance.  ^^Going  it  blind"  on  a  fine,  unten- 
anted highway  is  all  very  well,  but  there  was  some  psycho- 
logical discomfort  in  swooping  around  those  silent  turns 
and  darting  through  the  high-walled  tunnels  of  murmur- 
ous trees  among  which  a  hoche  shell  might  tear  its  way  at 
any  moment.  The  discomfort  became  very  real  as  a  sharp 
challenge  suddenly  halted  the  first  of  our  cars  so  unex- 
pectedly we  almost  ran  into  it.  A  French  sentry  at  its 
door  held  his  bayonet  at  the  charge. 

"Wliat  do  you  mean  by  running  past  a  sentry?"  he  de- 
manded. 

"Sentry!"  repeated  our  Captain.  "Where?" 

"A  hundred  meters  back.  He  challenged,  and  you  ran  by 
him.    Now  I  have  you.  Passez-moi  le  motr 

''Mon  DieuT  cried  the  Captain.  "I  haven't  the  pass- 
word !  I  forgot  to  get  it !" 

"You  get  out  and  come  with  me.  We'll  see  about  that," 
retorted  the  sentry. 


ALSACE   AND   ITS   PEOBLEMS  247 

Captain  A came  out  of  that  car  in  more  of  a  hurry 

than  I  had  ever  seen  him  exhibit  before.  The  sentry  kept 
his  eye  on  him  and  called  to  another  guard  to  hold  the  rest 
of  us  while  he  took  his  prisoner  to  the  corporal. 

"You  were  lucky  the  fellow  didn't  blow  your  head  off/' 
that  worthy  grumbled.  "If  it  had  been  near  Verdun,  or 
along  the  Somme —  V 

"It  was  close  enough  for  me,"  murmured  the  Captain 
afterward  as  he  told  us  of  what  had  happened  in  the  dark 
little  hut  where  the  corporal  sat. 

We  made  a  great  loop  all  around  the  recovered  region, 
through  picturesque  old  towns  all  with  the  same  high  color 
and  charm,  "over  the  hills  and  far  away,"  and  came  to  rest 
at  last  back  in  a  Belfort  hotel  at  the  very  moment  the  siren 
on  the  Fortress  began  to  bellow  and  the  guns  on  the  out- 
skirts began  to  pop.  "We  rushed  out  into  the  main  square 
where  we  could  see  the  fort,  as  well  as  the  sky.  People 
gathered  in  knots  in  the  streets  and  stared  upward. 

"Oof!  Driven  off!"  exclaimed  our  Captain,  as  a  Chas- 
seur bugler  mounted  the  steps  of  the  monument  to  the 
heroes  of  '70,  and  blew  the  beautiful  call  announcing  that 
danger  was  over.  We  turned  back  to  the  hotel  and  lunch- 
eon. Three  times  we  heard  the  message  of  peace  repeated, 
in  different  quarters  of  the  city,  before  we  reached  the 
hotel — and  while  we  were  in  the  midst  of  our  soup  the 
siren  began  to  bellow  again. 

'^ Alerter  said  the  Captain,  suspending  his  spoon  for  an 


248  WITH    THEEB   ARMIES 

instant.  Then  he  went  calmly  on  with  his  meal,  and  we 
could  do  no  less. 

Belfort  has  no  fear  of  the  hocJie  flying  men,  even  though 
they  come  by  day  and  fly  low  enough  to  turn  their  machine- 
guns  down  the  streets.  On  Monday  of  the  week  we  were 
there  they  killed  sixteen  dogs;  on  Tuesday,  eighteen. 
Wednesday  they  did  better — a  baby  in  its  mother's  arms 
and  an  officer  of  the  garrison.  At  the  same  time  they 
bombed  a  little,  blowing  a  hole  in  the  pavement  in  front  of 
our  hotel,  all  of  whose  windows  were  broken.  Yet  Belfort, 
mindful  of  its  heroic  standard  of  1870,  goes  calmly  on 
about  its  business.  The  big  sign  on  the  fagade  of  the  hotel 
— CAVE!  Refuge  en  cos  de  Bombardement.  GO  Per- 
sonnes,  (Cellar:  Refuge  for  60  persons  during  bombard- 
ments)— galled  no  one  in  when  the  alert e  blew.  The  stran- 
ger would  not  have  known  anything  was  amiss  save  for  the 
groups  who  gazed  skyward. 

The  mountains  of  Alsace  are  not  very  lofty,  not  espe- 
cially impressive  peaks  as  great  mountains  go,  but  they  are 
supremely  lovely,  and  when  the  war  is  over,  the  Route 
Joffre  and  the  fine  new  Route  Rationale,  which  skips  like 
a  chamois  from  peak  to  wooded  peak,  will  be  the  resort  of 
every  traveler  with  a  motor.  The  vistas  from  these  blue 
hills  are  blue  and  green  and  silver  below,  azure  and  silver 
above:  the  Vosges  themselves,  the  distant  Alps,  the  head- 
waters of  the  Moselle,  the  exquisite  little  Lac  de  Sewen 
from  which  it  flows,  the  far-off  Rhine  and  Germany,  the 
dazzling  skies.    From  the  little  observatory  on  the  top  of 


ALSACE    AND    ITS    PROBLEMS  249 

the  Ballon  d' Alsace,  the  highest  of  all  the  peaks,  with  its 
brass-topped  stone  wall  marked  by  direction  arrows,  we 
looked  away  over  all  these,  over  the  lonely  fortress  upon 
the  huge  Ballon  de  Servance,  and  down  npon  Belfort,  shin- 
ing in  cool  summer  sunshine  far  below  in  the  plain. 

It  was  a  prospect  to  make  one  think,  that  circular  view 
along  the  roof  of  the  world:  France — giving  her  treasure 
and  blood  for  Alsace;  lovely,  virginal  Alsace,  chained  like 
Andromeda,  waiting  the  deliverance  of  a  new  Perseus.  The 
world-public  has  not  yet  wakened  to  the  importance  of  the 
region;  it  listens  in  honest  confusion  to  the  lying  propa- 
ganda Germany  is  still  assiduously  spreading  to  cloud  the 
issue  and  weaken  the  Allies'  determination  that  right  shall 
be  done.  It  will  be  done  I  France  has  sworn  her  oath,  the 
leaders  of  British  thought  have  pledged  themselves,  and 
America  has  taken  her  stand  beside  them  officially,  despite 
the  ignorance  and  indifference  of  most  Americans.  So, 
through  an  immediate  future  as  uncertain  as  the  haze 
which  made  the  vista  quiver  that  sunny  morning  from  the 
top  of  the  Ballon,  Alsace  waits,  and  hopes,  impatient  now 
that  her  long  slavery's  end  is  near,  but  confident  of  the 
Liberie,  Egalite,  Fratemite  she  sees  dawning  over  the  blue 
shoulders  of  her  bounding  hills. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A  SAVING  HUMOR  AND  A  NEW  ART 

C'est  d,  rire — It  is  to  laugh ! 

But  how  could  any  nation  so  hard  pressed  by  war  as 
France  manage  a  laugh?  On  the  other  hand,  how  could 
she  do  anything  else?  Certainly  had  she  looked  only  on 
the  darker  side,  kept  her  mind  fixed  upon  the  horrors  she 
was  and  is  going  through,  France  would  quickly  have  gone 
as  mad  as  the  Bolsheviki,  instead  of  sanely,  wisely  planning 
and  working  always  with  the  one  great  end  in  view:  the 
vital  after-war  reconstitution  of  people  and  country. 

At  first,  of  course,  she  did  not  laugh,  in  those  grim  days 
when  the  shock  of  the  treacherous  assault  shook  her  soul 
to  its  very  foundations,  and  the  whole  world  seemed  to 
rock  dizzily  with  the  impact.  Nobody  but  the  hoche  laughed 
in  those  days ;  and  that  laughter  was  not  good  to  hear,  with 
its  taint  of  brimstone  and  raw  blood.  Yet  the  saving  re- 
action, the  inevitable,  essential  rebound  was  not  long  in 
coming,  and  individually  and  collectively  the  French  felt 
the  tug  of  the  desire  to  smile.  Voild — they  made  something 
to  smile  at,  and  the  whole  world  is  the  richer  for  that  inex- 
tinguishable gaiety. 

They  have  that  rare  quality,  the  ability  to  see  the  funny 
side  of  even  their  greatest  privations  and  sufferings.    Their 

250 


A  SAVING  HITMOE  AND  A  NEW  AET      251 

weird  trencH  newspapers  ridicule  the  man  who  complains 
of  his  pillow — a  mud  puddle — ^being  soiled  because  the 
man  who  stood  on  it  last  spit  on  it  rather  too  freely,  as 
well  as  poke  fun  at  exalted  generals.  Not  exactly  parlor 
humor — ^that  pillow  joke !  But  soldiers  are  children,  and 
anything  that  makes  them  laugh  because  of  its  human  uni- 
versality is  chuckled  over  and  repeated  and  relished,  and 
passed  from  lip  to  lip,  until  it  becomes  almost  a  classic. 
These  trench  papers,  at  first  written  out  by  hand,  mimeo- 
graphed when  war  settled  down  into  long  trench  sieges, 
and  now  often  printed  on  regular  presses,  have  a  keen 
wit  and  a  vivid  style  no  publication  of  civil  life  can  hope 
to  obtain. 

From  the  beginning,  the  artists  at  home  have  kept  pace 
with  their  fellows  in  the  lines.  One  of  the  men  whose 
drawings  gather  a  crowd  around  the  windows  where  they 
are  exposed  on  the  Grands  Boulevards,  went  up  to  the 
front  for  a  time  and  came  back  with  a  whole  portfolio  of 
ideas — slangy,  gay,  impertinent,  but  always  witty.  One  of 
his  sketches  shows  a  private  staggering  back  into  the  fire 
trench  at  supper-time  with  two  big  kettles  of  stew  for  his 
waiting  comrades — and  a  beautiful  black  eye.  Beneath  it 
runs  the  fable,  here  Englished  to  correspond  with  the  sol- 
dier slang: 

"Great  Scott,  old  scout—hit?'' 

"You  said  it !  Caught  a  flying  beet  in  the  lamp  P 

Everybody  in  France  knows  what  exploding  shells  do  in 
a  field  of  sugar-beets,  and  they  love  Poulbot  for  seeing,  not 


253  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

the  shell,  not  the  escape  from  a  mangling  death,  but  that 
flying  beet  and  the  astonished  black  eye. 

Ponlbot's  humor  sometimes  takes  forms  America  can  not 
grasp  easily,  or  altogether  appreciate,  so  thoroughly  Gallic 
is  it,  but  his  impertinence  is  quite  as  American  as  any- 
thing America  ever  produced  in  the  days  when  our  humor 
was  crisp  and  sparkling  and  unspoiled.  "Here,  you,  cut 
out  that  shooting,'^  he  makes  a  poilu  up  a  tree,  spotting 
for  the  guns,  remark  to  a  group  of  angry  bodies  below 
shooting  at  him,  "or  TU  come  down  and  kick  your  pants 
off !"  The  first  time  I  saw  that  cartoon  in  a  Paris  window 
an  elderly  gentleman  with  the  ribbon  of  the  civil  branch 
of  the  Legion  d'Honneur  in  his  buttonhole  stopped  beside 
me  and  labored  over  it  with  myopic  eyes  for  at  least  five 
minutes.  His  grave,  careworn  face  lightened ;  little,  pleased 
wrinkles  gathered  about  his  eyes  and  mouth.  He  suddenly 
pounded  the  sidewalk  with  his  stick.  "Pensez-vousr  he 
exclaimed  softly.  "Imagine!  The  young  scoundrel!  I'll 
bet  he  captured  every  mother's  son  of  'em,  too!''  and  the 
old  gentleman  marched  off,  a  little  straighter  than  before, 
slashing  before  him  with  his  very  unmilitary  cane. 

Every  phase  of  the  war  comes  under  the  keen  pens  of  the 
gifted  men  with  the  long  hair  and  the  greasy,  spotted  cor- 
duroy trousers  and  flowing  neckties  over  in  the  Quarter. 
Here  one  asks  trenchantly  in  a  little  dialogue  between  a 
mother  and  baby  as  the  hoche  troops  file  past  with  civilian 
prisoners :  "Mdma,  are  these  the  men  who  shot  my  Papa  ?" 
Humor?  Yes — ^the  kind  of  humor  that  makes  France  grit 


PftOPAGANDE  ALLEMANOE 


;  BtSfl^^*^   '•■■  ^U-n    * .  ..\foiJi^  0MtC^A^^\ 


Dirty  Belgium ! — Ach ! — there  it  is 
It  doesn't  know  I  just  killed  its  mother  raining  again  1 


It  is  not  me — It  is  him 


Comrade  1 — mama ! — comrade  I 


'Run  1  Tell  mama  I'm  a  prisoner  of  war — with  the  milk" 


.  K^ 


Lucky  for  me  my  sleeves  are  so  long  they  don't  know 
I've  got  my  hands  yet 


:a:  SAviisra  humor  and  a  new  art    253 

her  teeth,  swear  by  all  the  curious  and  inoffensive  things 
that  go  into  French  profanity,  and  turn  with  a  gay  smile 
to  the  cheery,  bearded  Chasseur  Alpin,  bent  double  under 
his  load  of  eighty  pounds — ^^^Heavy?  Imagine!  Got  the 
kid's  picture  in  there !" 

And  how  the  Frenchman  has  reveled  for  three  years  in 
his  gibes  at  the  Teutonic  stupidity  and  heaviness  and  in- 
decencies! The  Kaiser,  peering  through  a  field  telescope 
at  the  heaps  of  German  dead  piled  against  the  outworks  of 
Fort  de  Vaux  at  Verdun,  was  handled  roughly.  ''Sire," 
his  Adjutant  reported  in  great  agitation,  ''our  dead  are 
mounting  steadily  before  Fort  de  Vaux !"  And  the  Em- 
peror was  made  to  reply,  in  his  sadic  folly :  ''All  the  bet- 
ter! They'll  get  us  to  the  top  after  all!"  Grim,  indeed; 
grimmer,  in  fact,  than  even  that  other,  censored,  drawing 
of  a  milestone  in  the  open,  marked  indistinctly  "Verdun 
.  .  .  Kilometres,"  with  the  whole  landscape  covered  by 
German  bodies,  and  below  it  the  only  words  the  censor 
permitted  to  appear — "The  Goal."  They  got  there.  France 
admitted  that ;  admitted  all  the  German  War  Office  claimed 
of  Germany's  arrival  at  Verdun;  published  it,  even,  to  her 
own  people — showed  how  successfully  they  got  there ! 

Berlin  and  its  millinery  shops,  where  hats  stamped  with 
black  iron  crosses  could  be  turned  out  "eighty  thousand  a 
day"  to  follow  the  latest  mode ;  the  hungry  mob  outside  the 
empty  butcher-shop,  with  the  butcher  safe  behind  his  grille 
telling  the  people,  "No  meat  to-day,  but  get  the  Official 
Communique — ^it's  excellent !" ;  the  helmeted  soldiers  kneel- 


254  "WITH   THREE    AEMIES 

ing  behind  a  tombstone  before  whieli  a  widow  and  orphan 
pray  {The  Listening  Post)  ;  and  the  weather  in  Belgium, 
which  so  annoyed  the  happy  German  soldiery  with  its  con- 
tinually tearful  skies,  all  came  in  for  either  fun  or  fury, 
but  always  with  a  power  to  touch  the  French  heart  in  its 
tenderest  spot,  and  always  with  the  fewest  pen  strokes,  the 
simplest  words,  the  broadest  sympathy. 

Even  when  their  hearts  were  torn  asunder  by  the  stories 
from  the  front,  by  the  evidence  brought  back  and  given 
them  to  see,  of  the  frightful  atrocities  committed  upon  the 
helpless  and  the  non-combatant,  the  French  found  some- 
thing to  make  a  joke  of.  Gallant  and  joyous  race!  No 
strain  of  war,  no  unending  agony  can  break  or  even  warp 
them  so  long  as  that  precious  ability  to  jest  with  death  and 
terror  lasts.  The  huge  German  officer  pistoling  Edith 
Cavell  when  the  firing  squad  had  failed  to  complete  its 
work  is  made  ludicrous  as  he  stands  with  one  hand  in  his 
pocket  and  with  a  nonchalant  smile  upon  his  lips,  white 
gloves  on  his  hands,  his  boots  polished  to  mirrors,  a  per- 
fect type  of  "The  Great  Germany,"  a  figure  as  inhuman 
as  the  fat  hoclie  infantryman  feeding  a  baby  of  the  invaded 
region  and  grinning:  "It  doesn't  know  I  just  killed  its 
mother !" 

"Run !"  cries  a  ragged,  grinning  brat  with  a  milk-pail, 
in  one  of  Poulbot's  satires,  straining  away  from  the  hoclie 
who  has  seized  him,  while  two  smaller  children  watch 
in  terror.  "Run,  kids !  Tell  Mama  I'm  a  prisoner  of  war 
— ^with  the  milk!"    Even  the  children  know  enough  to 


A  SAVING  HUMOR  AND  A  NEW  ART      255 

make  a  jest  for  Mother's  sake  of  the  captivity  that  means 
only  God  knows  what.  And  the  two  tots  shivering  on  the 
ridgepole  Christmas  Eve,  hoping  to  see  a  Zeppelin  even  if 
they  don't  see  Christmas,  typify  the  French  ability  to  make 
something  out  of  nothing,  or  a  reward  out  of  a  pang  or  a 
disaster. 

Certainly  Poulbot  knows  the  heart  of  childhood,  as  well 
as  the  heart  of  humanity,  or  he  could  never  have  sketched 
a  little  girl,  her  right  arm  in  a  sling,  kneeling  before  a 
small  mound  surrounded  by  stones  and  headed  by  a  black 
cross,  while  behind  her  two  other  children  look  on  at  the 
grim  little  game,  and  one  says :  "It's  her  hand." 

The  grimmest,  as  well  as  the  wittiest,  of  all  tjie  war 
sketches  I  have  seen,  is  another  child  picture.  Two  mon- 
strous German  soldiers,  like  misshapen  grotesques  under 
their  kits  and  their  bags  of  loot,  goose-step  past  some  burn- 
ing ruins.  In  the  foreground  a  typical  French  gamin  grins 
from  ear  to  ear  in  malicious  bliss  as  he  looks  down  at  the 
sleeves  of  the  old  overcoat  which  engulfs  him  completely. 
"Gee!"  would  be  our  way  of  putting  his  caustic  com- 
mentary. "Lucky  for  me  my  sleeves  are  so  long  they  don't 
know  I've  got  my  hands  yet !" 

In  the  shop  where  I  purchased  most  of  my  sketches, 
Madame  came  to  me  one  evening  with  three  drawings  I 
had  not  seen.  "You  have  been  at  the  front,  of  course. 
Monsieur?"  she  said.  I  assented.  *'Eli  Men!  And  you  live 
here  in  Paris?" 

"Between  times,  Madame.  I  go  to  Lens  to-morrow." 


256  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

"Perfectly!  Regard  these,  then,"  and  she  handed  over 
the  cards. 

^'On  les  aura!"  I  read  beneath  three  children  climbing 
on  one  another's  shoulders  to  reach  the  jam-shelf.  "We'll 
get  them !" — Marshal  Joffre's  adjuration  at  the  Marne  and 
the  Somme  reduced  to  the  terms  of  domesticity.  The  sec- 
ond was  a  colloquy  between  an  ancient  dame  in  front  of 
her  stationery  shop  and  the  barkeeper  of  the  cafe  next 
door.  The  aged  complainer  stands  with  a  franc  in  her 
hand,  ready  to  put  it  into  the  slot  of  her  gas-meter.  "First 
we  have  poor  gas,"  she  grumbles,  "and  then  we  have  gas 
full  of  water,  and  pretty  soon  we'll  have  asphyxiating 
gas !"  Frightfulness  in  daily  life  behind  the  front,  whether 
it  be  the  lack  of  gas  or  of  food  or  of  heat,  has  so  inured  the 
people  to  personal  hardship  that  they  turn  the  edge  of  the 
meatless,  heatless,  wheatless,  hot-waterless  days  with  a  quip 
whenever  they  spare  a  moment  to  think  of  them  at  all. 
Madame  watched  me  closely  as  I  smiled  over  the  pictures, 
her  own  ruddy  features  glowing  with  satisfaction.  When  I 
turned  to  the  last  card,  a  charcoal  of  a  little  girl  leading  a 
plow-horse  while  mother  guided  the  plow  past  a  low  cross 
surmounted  by  a  soldier's  he]^,  she  could  restrain  herself  no 
longer. 

"Uautre  trancheer  she  cried,  quoting  the  printed  title, 
^^he  other  trench!  Cliic,  Men  cJiic,  n'est  ce  pasf  She 
dashed  something  out  of  her  dark  eyes  and  nodded  at  me 
with  a  new  smile,  a  smile  that  showed  the  depths  of  her 
soul.  "France  wars,"  she  said  softly.  "We  war  for  her." 


LA  BORNE.. 
The  goal 


Are  those  the  men  who  shot  my  papa  ? 


UN  POSTE  DtCOUTE 
A  listening  post 


A  SAVING  HUMOR  AND  A  NEW  ART      257 

That  was  all.  "We  war  for  her,"  we  women,  we  children 
of  light  and  gaiety,  we  who  have  not  forgotten  how  to 
smile  and  be  gay  despite  the  lumps  of  leads  within  our 
breasts  where  our  hearts  once  were.  Only  by  the  merest 
chance  did  I  learn  later  that  her  own  war-widowed  daugh- 
ter was  warring  for  France  behind  a  plow,  whose  reforme 
(returned  as  useless  by  the  Army)  horse  was  guided  by  her 
little  daughter.  Coming  back  to  the  shop  later  on,  I  asked 
Madame  if  she  had  shown  me  everything  she  had. 

"Monsieur,"  she  said  gravely,  "you  are  an  American. 
But,  also,  you  understand.  You  have  been  here  with  us. 
You  have  been  at  the  front.  You  know  what  war  means. 
You  will  not  be  hurt  for  your  country  if — ?" 

"Madame,"  I  answered,  "I  am  going  home  to  try  to 
make  my  country  feel  this  war  as  she  has  never  felt  any- 
thing before.  There  are  no  nations  any  more  among  us 
Allies.  I  am  not  American — ^you  are  not  French.  We  be- 
long to  the  same  family." 

That  fat  old  woman,  who  before  the  war  might  well  have 
been  considered  not  to  have  one  idea  in  her  shiny  black- 
dyed  head,  bowed  from  the  waist  with  a  royal  grace.  "Mon- 
sieur should  be  French !"  she  said ;  but  it  was  more  like  an 
explosion  of  gratitude  than  a  compliment.  Then  she 
handed  me  a  great,  stark  charcoal,  a  thing  of  few  strokes 
and  sinister  ones — a  blazing  farm,  some  huddled  refugees, 
one  lone  woman  silhouetted  against  a  sky  blank  save  for 
a  vanishing  hocJie  aviatik.  Under  it  the  artist,  still  full  of 


258  WITH    THREE   ARMIES 

the  fine  fury  of  composition,  had  scrawled :   "Dire  qu'il  y 
a  encore  des  neutres! — They  say  there  are  still  neutrals  T 

Brave  Madame!  She  knew  in  her  heart  that  America 
was  not  yet  awake,  and  she  risked  that  most  dreadful  thing 
— ^the  loss  of  a  customer — ^to  try  to  stir  at  least  one  Amer- 
ican to  new  vision. 

The  war  that  has  bred  a  new  spirit  throughout  civiliza- 
tion has  been  obliged  to  coin  a  new  language  all  its  own  to 
suit  the  new  conditions  it  has  brought  about.  Drumfire 
and  barrages,  No  Man's  Land  and  "going  over  the  top"  are 
only  examples  of  the  innumerable  now  familiar  terms 
which  sounded  so  strange  to  our  unaccustomed  ears  a  brief 
three  years  ago.  The  soldier  slang  of  to-day  will  be  the 
common  speech  of  to-morrow  when  the  men  come  back 
home.  But  there  are  certain  phases  of  the  martial  activity 
which  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  reduce  to  speech  of  any 
sort  what  the  men  who  cause  them  know  and  feel  and  do, 
so  that  the  civilian  can  understand.  Of  all  these,  the  air 
service  stands  first  in  unintelligibility. 

The  air  is  the  last  of  the  elements  to  be  conquered  by 
human  ingenuity,  and  that  ingenuity  has  produced  so  many 
marvels  not  in  themselves  properly  of  the  air,  that  one 
stands  confused  before  the  complexity  of  the  service,  which, 
without  any  solid  basis  to  rest  upon,  can  utilize  such  hith- 
erto unimagined  accessories.  For  not  only  has  flying  been 
reduced  in  three  years  from  a  haphazard  sport  to  a  science 
with  definitely  established  laws  as  a  basis  from  which  the 


A  SAYING  HUMOR  AND  A  NEW  ART      259 

individual  must  work  out  his  own  refinements,  but  it  has 
ceased  largely  to  be  hazardous  and  become  almost  common- 
place in  the  regularity  and  precision  of  its  achievements. 
Because  of  its  demands,  cameras  were  produced  that  would 
photograph  with  the  speed  of  a  lightning  flash,  often 
through  mists  and  haze,  objects  which  to  an  ordinary 
camera  would  not  even  appear  as  pinpoints  without  form 
or  detail.  And  yet  more  because  of  its  demands,  a  new 
breed  of  man  has  suddenly  sprung  into  spiritual  being,  a 
creature  so  far  removed  from  the  man  of  the  trenches,  from 
the  man  in  the  street  at  home,  that  he  is  a  type  by  him- 
self, indescribable  and  almost  unknowable,  save  by  his 
comrades  of  the  same  service.  He  can  not  be  adequately 
translated  into  speech  or  analyzed  by  the  psychologist  any 
more  than  the  things  he  does  in  the  aether  five  miles  above 
the  earth  can  be  described  in  any  terms  men  now  under- 
stand. I  had  despaired  of  being  able  to  tell  anything  of 
this.  Then  I  learned  he  can  be  set  before  us  so  vividly,  so 
powerfully,  that  the  most  utterly  earth-bound  intelligence 
can  grasp  something  of  his  loftiness  of  soul  and  serenity 
of  life. 

One  day  in  the  Foreign  Ofiice  Press  Bureau,  I  was  beg- 
ging for  a  chance  to  go  at  once  to  Reims.  My  friend  Mon- 
sieur Zhee  murmured  something  about  too  many  shells  just 
then,  took  out  a  card,  scribbled  on  it,  and  handed  it  to 
me. — He  was  always  handing  me  a  sop ! 

'^Go  up  to  the  Aero  Club  de  France,"  he  suggested  sooth- 
ingly, ^^and  see  some  remarkable  aeroplane  pictures." 


260  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

I  walked  out  of  the  Eoreign  Office  dejected.  Reims 
seemed  a  very  faint,  if  lurid,  vision  far  down  on  the  hori- 
zon. I  was  being  balked,  and  it  was  annoying.  I  was  weary 
of  aeroplanes.  I  had  seen  them  by  the  hundred  on  the  dif- 
ferent fighting  fronts.  I  had  seen  them  fight  and  run,  fight 
and  fall.  I  could  recognize  their  elemental  differences  of 
build  and  style  from  the  ground  while  they  were  buzzing 
angrily  above  me  in  the  air.  And  now  I  was  invited  to  go 
and  look  at  a  lot  of  mechanical  daubs  of  paint  on  canvas, 
telling  me  less  than  I  already  knew !  But  I  went  to  the 
Aero  Club  anyway,  picking  up  an  American  friend  who 
languidly  consented  to  be  bored  with  me,  since  he  also  knew 
aeroplanes. 

Erom  the  reception  room  I  glimpsed  highly  colored,  im- 
'pressionistic-looking  canvases  on  the  walls  of  the  exhibition- 
room  adjoining,  and  groaned  as  I  turned  toward  my  com- 
panion. He  was  standing  like  a  man  petrified,  staring  at 
a  picture  on  the  table. 

"The  Crusades!'^  he  murmured,  almost  whispering  the 
words.  "Look  at  that  twentieth-century  Richard  the 
Lionheart  I'' 

It  was  a  bust.  Over  the  head  was  tightly  fastened  the 
aviator's  leather  helmet,  closing  in  with  its  wind-proof 
embrace  stern,  fine,  fearless  features  illuminated  by  pierc- 
ing, all-inclusive  eyes,  and  given  repose  and  dignity  by  a 
strong,  generous  nose  and  firm  lips.  It  was  a  predatory 
face,  the  visage  of  a  fighter,  a  study  of  a  warrior  soul  that 


A  SAVING  HUMOR  AND  A  NEW  ART      261 

loves  the  combat  for  its  own  sake.  AnK  yet,  without  in  any 
way  destroying  the  grimness  and  virility  of  that  perfect 
boyish  knighthood  of  another  age  revivified,  was  a  tender 
sweetness  that  humanized  it — ^those  close-set  lips  could  kiss 
those  of  a  laughing  girl,  those  eagle  eyes  cease  from  comb- 
ing the  skies  for  hoches  and  twinkle  into  the  limpid  orbs  of 
wife  or  child. 

^^A  new  type  in  art !"  I  whispered  back,  as  thrilled  as  he. 
"The  air  crusader  \" 

A  big,  rotund,  ruby-faced  Frenchman  of  some  fifty-odd, 
full  bearded  and  keen  eyed,  garbed  in  an  aviator's  uniform 
and  puttees  of  the  horizon  blue,  noting  our  absorption, 
came  up.  It  was  Monsieur  Farre,  who  had  painted  the  pic- 
ture. Crisp,  as  only  a  Frenclunan  can  be  eloquently  crisp, 
he  said:  "Gentlemen — dead;  upon  the  field  of  honor!" 
After  a  moment's  pause,  he  added :   "Lieutenant  Dorme." 

I  never  knew  Lieutenant  Dorme,  never  heard  of  him, 
save  as  one  of  the  French  "Aces."  Who  he  was  and  what 
he  had  done  did  not  matter,  in  an  artistic  sense.  What  did 
matter  was  that  he  had  been  the  inspiration  to  Monsieur 
Farre  which  resulted  so  splendidly  in  the  creation  of  this 
air  crusader.  It  conjured  up  a  vision  of  that  thirteenth- 
century  past,  so  vivid  the  mind  was  instantly  stimulated 
to  some  realization  of  the  spirituality  and  rigorous  knight- 
liness  of  these  boys  of  France — of  all  the  Allied  Nations — • 
who  consecrate  their  lives  to  the  uncertain  element  with  all 
the  gallantry  and  determination,  "faithful  unto  death," 
that  characterized  the  knights  of  the  Middle  Ages  who 


262  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

tilted  against  the  pa3naiin  or  died  on  the  scaling  ladders  in 
the  moats  of  Acre  and  Jerusalem. 

When  I  looked  into  the  eyes  of  Monsieur  Farre  I  could 
understand  the  portrait  even  better.  They  were  mystic  eyes, 
curiously  in  contrast  to  the  heavy,  rubicund  features,  so  full 
of  well-fed  good  nature  and  not  untouched  by  a  trace  of  the 
painter's  consciousness  of  his  power  and  resource.  They 
were  dreamer's  eyes,  in  whose  pale  grayish-blue  depths 
lurked  a  knowledge  of  the  air  gained  by  experience.  The 
eyes  of  seafaring  men  sometimes  have  this  eerie  conscious- 
ness. But  they  are  different :  they  deal  with  the  tangible  al- 
ways, with  clouds  whose  flight  is  measured  by  sea  or  shore, 
with  the  sea  whose  waves  give  contrast  and  motion  and 
shifting  colors  one  can  grasp,  with  winds  whose  whisper  or 
bluster  ruffles  or  tears  very  material  waters.  Here  were  eyes 
that  somehow  spoke  of  seeing  motion  of  aether;  of  probing 
the  skyey  heights  and  profundities  where  no  motionless 
thing  exists  to  give  motion  the  illusion  we  of  the  earth  need, 
to  realize  what  motion  is;  of  knowing  what  it  means  to  fall 
a  mile  at  cannon-ball  speed,  yet  with  clear  head  and  nerve 
unshaken.  What  wonder  such  eyes  could  imagine,  and 
guide  the  brush  to  realize  on  a  bit  of  canvas,  a  crusader 
returned  to  life  for  a  brief  space  that  he  might  serve  man- 
kind by  reestablishing  the  ancient  ideal  of  knighthood  in 
its  perfect  flower ! 

Henry  Farre  was  a  painter  of  marines  before  the  world 
holocaust  transformed  him  into  Bombardier- Observer 
IFarr^.    And  now  it  is  the  skies,  the  air  that  guide  his 


\            ji 

^ 

■ 

"   '  J  I^H 

V 

4lr^^^3 

ki 

'^l 

B-N 

lii^H 

m   t  ^ 

iTom  a  paiiunig  by  Henry  Farre 

Lieutenant  Dorme.    "Dead  on  the  field  of  honor" 


A  SAVING  HUMOE  AND  A  NEW  ART      263 

brain  and  brush  in  dreams  wrought  in  colors  now  vague 
and  now  lurid,  in  forms  now  almost  lost  in  the  supporting 
aether,  now  sharply  defined  and  coldly  wrought :  a  machine 
bombarding  a  hydroaeroplane  in  distress;  that  other  ma- 
chine raising  a  perfect  cloudburst  of  water  as  it  darts  furi- 
ously down  upon  a  sneaking  submarine;  the  ghostly, 
ghastly,  half -discerned  shapes  of  a  flock  of  machines  wing- 
ing their  nervous  way  through  and  beyond  the  deadly  bar- 
rage fire  that  fills  the  opaque  sky  all  about  them  with 
horrid  little  spotty  bursts  of  smoke;  that  marvelous  night 
reconnaissance  beside  an  astonished  moon;  and  the  weird 
scene  above  Verdun  in  a  sky  full  of  stars  and  star-shells, 
searchlights  and  shrapnel. 

The  painter's  simple  mind  groped  for  words  to  describe 
and  identify  for  us  what  his  brushes  had  plucked  from  the 
swirling  skies.  He  struggled  to  find,  to  coin  that  new  lan- 
guage which  should  make  intelligible  the  unspoken 
thoughts  behind  the  canvases — and  failed.  Faintly  he 
splashed-in  a  sort  of  verbal  tone-picture  of  the  effects  the 
upper  air  has  upon  the  human  mind;  of  the  sense  that 
comes  to  one  who  looks  down  upon  the  muddy  ball  five 
miles  below — an  all  but  indistinguishable  neutral  blob  or 
a  brilliant  series  of  flattened-out  color  contrasts — of  utter 
detachment,  of  freedom,  of — .  It  is  no  use.  Bombardier- 
Observer  Farr6  could  not  give  it  me,  and  I  can  not  transmit 
what  I  lack. 

At  some  not  far  distant  day,  when  the  war  is  a  thing  of 
the  past,  and  we  are  traveling  safely  and  swiftly  through 


264  WITH    THEEE    AEMIES 

the  unstable  medium  as  easily  as  birds  because  of  the  in- 
trepidity and  hard  thinking  under  the  sternest  pressure  of 
these  bird-men  of  the  war,  the  speech  may  be  found,  the 
terms  discovered  or  invented  to  tell  the  story  now  so  vague 
that  even  those  who  sense  it  do  not  know  exactly  what  it 
is — "a  psychological  condition'^  beyond  doubt,  but  needing 
a  new  psychology  for  its  medium  of  expression. 

Meantime,  whether  or  not  the  critics  agree  that  these 
gloomy  and  glowing,  sharply  defined  and  hazily  impression- 
istic paintings  are  worthy  to  be  ranked  as  masterpieces,  the 
fact  remains  that  they  mark  a  new  phase — ^bold  exponents 
of  the  inventive  idealism  of  the  twentieth  century.  And  to 
whomsoever  has  seen  them,  no  matter  what  other  impres- 
sion has  faded,  there  will  come  back  again  and  again — fresh 
and  strong  and  full  of  the  new  spirit  the  air  of  the  upper 
skies  has  bred  in  men — ^the  feeling  that  they  speak  with  the 
conviction  of  experience  the  new  something  we  are  all  to 
learn  some  day — and  soon. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


LEFT-OVERS 


As  THE  end  of  the  book  comes  in  sight,  notes  until  now 
overlooked  keep  turning  up  in  unexpected  ways,  and  ideas 
and  memories  forgotten  in  the  press  of  traveling,  lecturing 
and  writing  keep  recurring  with  most  insistent  demands 
for  inclusion — so  insistent  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to 
gather  them  all  into  one  genial  spread  of  left-overs. 

Until  I  applied  in  Paris  for  my  police  papers,  I  thought 
I  knew  who  I  was.  After  four  days  of  going  up  and  down 
and  to  and  fro  through  Paris  and  her  police  stations,  I 
confessed  I  wasn^t  even  certain  I  had  ever  been  born !  At 
the  Foreign  Office  a  courteous  official  gave  me  a  note  to 
that  majestic  functionary.  Monsieur  le  Prefet  de  Police, 
asking  him  to  be  so  kind  as  to  expedite  the  securing  of  my 
papers.  Eight  there  my  troubles  began.  I  presented  my 
note  at  Headquarters.  A  glorious  person  in  a  dress  suit — ■ 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  Headquarters  opened! 
— with  a  massive,  silvered  dog-chain  around  his  neck,  re- 
joicing in  the  ominous  sounding  title  of  Huissier  notwith- 
standing his  innocent  occupation  as  office-boy,  bade  me  be 
seated  and  wait  upon  the  pleasure  of  the  august  one  con- 
cealed within. 

266 


266  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

Half  an  hour  passed.  Came  the  huissier  again.  ''Mon- 
sieur, you  must  go  to  your  own  Arrondissement  police  sta- 
tion, and  apply  for  your  papers  there.  Monsieur  le  Prefet 
has  been  pleased  to  receive  the  note.  He  has  filed  it." 

To  the  other  end  of  the  city  I  sped  in  a  decrepit  taxi. 
The  desk  sergeant  was  very  polite.  "I  am  sorry,  Monsieur, 
hut  we  do  not  issue  permits  here.  You  should  visit,"  etc. 
I  spent  four  dollars  that  day  in  taxi  fares !  By  evening  I 
had  discovered  that  the  police  stations,  like  all  decently 
regulated  Government  offices,  closed  at  four,  and  that  be- 
fore I  could  secure  permission  even  to  make  application  for 
a  stranger's  ''Card  of  Identity"  and  "Certificate  of  Matricu- 
lation" (permission  to  reside  in  Paris),  I  must  have  a 
statement  from  my  hotel  that  I  was  actually  in  residence. 
When  I  demanded  somewhat  sharply  of  the  clerk,  who 
immediately  made  it  out  for  me,  why  he  had  not  told  me  of 
that  requirement  before  I  began  my  quest,  he  merely 
blinked  and  shrugged. 

The  days  passed,  the  taxi  fares  mounted.  I  took  to 
walking  and  objurgation.  At  last  I  stumbled  into  the  proper 
groove  and  the  end  was  in  sight.  In  the  same  huge  build- 
ing that  contained  Headquarters,  I  took  my  place  on  the 
benches  with  a  row  of  other  misercobles,  and  grinned  at  the 
conversation  of  my  nearest  neighbors,  two  American  ladies 
come  over  to  do  relief  work,  both  of  them  former  residents 
of  Paris,  and  both  armed  with  their  expired  permits  of 
other  days.  Before  the  grin  was  half-way  across  my  face,  a 
lynx-eyed  person  in  plain  clothes  tapped  my  shoulder. 


LEFT-OVEES  267 

^'Pardon,  Monsieur/^  he  remarked  severely.  ^^Oiie  does 
not  smile  here/^ 

I  gave  him  one  glance.  '^Pardon,  Monsieur,"  I  replied 
gravely,  ^^one  indeed  does  not  smile  in  here !" 

Fortunately,  both  the  American  ladies  had  handker- 
chiefs handy.  The  French  and  Belgians  did  not  under- 
stand, and  looked  blank.  But  we  three  dared  not  so  much 
as  glance  at  one  another  after  that. 

There  was  more  waiting,  more  red  tape  to  be  unknotted 
before  I  could  get  to  the  far-away  front,  relieved,  however, 
by  one  little  journey  that  will  always  remain  an  impressive 
memory — ^the  celebration  of  the  third  anniversary  of  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne.  We  were  all  there:  correspondents, 
visitors,  dignitaries,  the  President  and  most  of  his  Cabinet, 
the  victor  himself  and  his  commanders — Poincare,  Ribot, 
Steeg;  "P^pa"  Joffre,  Foch,  Petain,  Gouraud  the  ^^Lion 
d'Afrique/^  and  all  the  rest.  The  train  was  in  two  quite 
distinct  parts,  though  physically  one :  ahead,  the  President 
of  France,  the  Cabinet  officers.  Field  Marshal  Joffre  and 
the  great  Generals;  behind,  the  Foreign  Office  and  Press 
Bureau  officials,  correspondents  and  visitors.  Each  division 
had  its  own  diner,  and,  at  the  station,  its  own  military 
buses,  like  the  irreverent  '^rubberneck  wagons"  of  America. 

They  took  us  of  the  last  division  in  a  torrential  down- 
pour to  the  edge  of  the  battle-field  and  calmly  dumped  us 
out  into  the  chilling  rain — and  we  stayed  there,  soaked  and 
cold,  until,  half  an  hour  later,  the  sun  broke  through  the 
clouds  and  the  dignitaries  arrived.   Long  before,  the  civil- 


268  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

ian  population  of  tlie  vicinity  for  miles  around  had  gath- 
ered, careless  of  exposure:  mothers  with  babies  in  their 
arms,  drenched  to  the  skin,  little  girls  whose  thin  legs 
were  plastered  by  their  thinner,  dripping  calico,  boys  whose 
trousers  clung  black  and  whose  shirts  ridged  in  soaking 
wrinkles  along  their  muscular  young  backs,  old  men  whose 
beards  glistened  with  drops.  Soldiers  there  were  by  the 
thousand — veterans  of  the  great  fight.  They  stood  in  ser- 
ried ranks  that  made  a  broad  avenue  of  entrance  to  the 
grass  dai's,  behind  which  a  neat  artificial  green  screen  had 
been  raised  to  keep  off  the  wind.  All  about,  the  broad  ex- 
panse of  sweet,  fresh  green,  that  rolled  and  swelled  and 
fell  away  to  rise  again  in  long,  ridgelike  knolls  rippling 
into  the  hazy  distance,  was  poignant  with  occasional 
graves.  Buried  where  they  fell !  What  Frenchman  can  ever 
forget  that  bitter  field,  where  the  kindly,  smiling  old  gen- 
tleman with  the  seven  stars  of  a  Field  Marshal  on  his 
sleeves  gave  the  order  to  die  rather  than  yield  a  single  foot  ? 
There  he  was  now,  coming  smiling  along  that  wide  ave- 
nue, alone,  before  him  the  President  and  Cabinet,  behind 
him  his  Generals.  Immortal  Joifre!  He  dared  to  retreat. 
He  dared  to  keep  his  lips  tight  shut  and  retreat,  and  re- 
treat, and  retreat — ^while  France  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  wondered — ^until  that  day  when  he  called  his  com- 
manders together  on  the  steps  of  the  Headquarters  Chateau 
and  said  simply  to  them  that  along  this  line  they  must 
halt  the  foe.  He  did  not  seem  at  all  the  masterful  soldier, 


LEFT-OVEES  2G9 

not  at  all  the  dashing  cavalier — ^just  a  well-fed,  happy, 
simple  country  gentleman.   But  he  was — Joffre! 

The  bands  blared  as  the  little  procession  advanced,  bare- 
headed over  that  hallowed  ground  through  the  dripping 
grass.  The  high  dignitaries  took  their  places.  Prime  Min- 
ister Eibot,  gigantically  tall,  painfully  emaciated,  pale 
faced  and  snowy  haired,  mounted  the  dais  and  every  hat 
in  the  vast  assemblage  came  ofl:  as  he  read,  with  shaking 
voice  and  tremulous  hands,  the  brief  speech  we  had  been 
permitted  to  study  coming  out  in  the  train — ^words  without 
emotion,  without  emphasis,  almost,  without  a  trace  of  the 
fireworks  a  French  speech  so  often  contains;  but  words 
that  spoke  the  inflexible  determination  of  France  to  go  on 
to  the  end,  to  extermination  if  need  be,  for  the  sake  of 
civilization  and  honor. 

Once  more  the  buses  picked  us  up,  ground  their  way 
over  the  slippery,  muddy  roads  to  the  little  Chateau  de 
Mondemont,  torn  to  pieces  by  the  shelling,  first  of  the 
French  guns  that  drove  out  the  hoches,  then  of  the  hoche 
guns  that  could  not  dislodge  the  victors.  Under  a  great 
tree  near  by  General  Foch  stood  with  map  in  hand,  ex- 
plaining how  he  had  been  able  to  smash  Von  Kluck's  ad- 
vance, which  covered  the  plain  and  the  famous  marshes 
that  swept  away  at  his  feet.  The  story  had  everything 
Premier  Eibot's  speech  had  not.  It  was  dramatic  and  full 
of  vivid  color.  Here  the  Death's  Head  Hussars  went  down 
in  the  marshes — ^here  the  whole  line  crumpled  and  broke. 


270  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

As  General  Foch's  eyes  cooled  and  he  slowly  folded  up  his 
map — the  one  he  used  in  that  very  Chateau  as  his  head- 
quarters during  the  battle — President  Poincare  said  to  him 
softly:   ^'But,  my  General,  you  have  forgotten  one  thing." 

The  General  turned  upon  him  with  a  start  of  astonish- 
ment. 

**Mon  President  r  he  exclaimed.  "Forgotten  some- 
thing  .    .    .    ?" 

President  Poincare  smiled,  and  laid  a  hand  on  tlie  hori- 
zon blue  shoulder. 

"Oui,  mon  General — ^yourself  V 

Marshal,  Generals,  President  and  Cabinet  went  down 
into  the  field  below,  where  more  thousands,  this  time  heavy 
cavalry,  very  different  in  their  war-time  horizon  blue  from 
their  former  black  and  scarlet  with  shining  breastplates 
and  helmets,  stood  stiffly  in  review.  The  trumpeters  blazed 
out  a  terrific  fanfare  that  volleyed  through  the  quiet  valley 
shrill  and  stirring,  and  the  band  burst  into  the  Sambre  et 
la  Meuse,  that  old  march  which  would  make  the  mummy  of 
Rameses  II  beat  on  its  case  and  struggle  to  get  out  and 
figlit!  The  shivering  countryfolk  heard  it  with  awe, 
watched  the  cavalry  re-form  and  trot  away  as  the  last  of 
the  officials  vanished  in  the  automobiles,  stood  there  petri- 
fied with  their  memories.  And  my  last  memory  of  that  cele- 
bration is  the  picture  of  some  cavalrymen  posted  as  sentries 
during  the  affair,  galloping  their  horses  furiously  over 
hedges  and  across  muddy  fields  to  get  back  to  their  com- 
mands. 


LEFT-OVEES  271 

Afterward,  as  I  stood  one  morning  outside  the  entrance 
to  the  great  Charing  Cross  railroad  station  in  London,  the 
picture  flashed  before  me  again  while  I  watched  ambu- 
lances and  private  motors  file  slowly  out  with  wounded  just 
arriving  in  Bfighty.  Why  a  hundred  or  so  wounded  Brit- 
ish Tommies  should  evoke  that  vision  of  galloping  French 
cavalry,  I  can  not  imagine,  but  they  did.  Perhaps  it  was 
the  very  extremity  of  the  contrast — ^these  emaciated,  pale, 
helpless ;  those  full  of  the  color  and  vigor  of  life.  Eelatives 
and  friends  waited  beside  me  on  the  sidewalk,  their  arms 
overflowing  with  flowers  and  heather,  their  eyes  with  glad- 
some tears.  And  how  the  men  reached  for  those  extended 
branches !  They  were  clutching  at  England — at  home — at 
life  itself!  They  waved  back  with  pallid  smiles  of  utter 
content,  hugging  their  guerdons  close  as  the  motors  rolled 
out  and  were  swallowed  by  the  unhesitating  trafiic.  The 
sidewalks,  too,  pulsed  steadily  on,  save  for  the  few  who 
had  reason  to  be  there,  and  myself.  Why?  Was  England 
so  absorbed  in  the  sordid  struggle  for  existence  she  had  no 
time  for  her  shattered  children  ?  Rather  was  it  not  that  the 
street  saw,  closed  its  eyes  and  passed  on  deliberately,  un- 
willing to  drain  itself  of  spirit  and  nerve  which  could  do  no 
good  to  the  returning,  and  which  it  might  very  well  need  it- 
self at  any  moment  ? 

Once  in  England,  the  comparative  absence  of  red  tape  is 
refreshing.  My  hotel  handed  me  the  usual  war-time  blank 
form,  notifying  me  to  register  as  an  alien  within  so  many 
hours  at  such  and  such  a  police  station.   My  passport  duly 


373  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

examined,  docketed  and  stamped,  I  was  asked  when  I  was 
leaving  and  where  I  was  going.  The  replies  being  satis- 
factory, the  deskman  smiled  pleasantly  and  said: 

"I  know  Americans  very  well,  sir,  so  I'll  just  put  you 
down  as  leaving  Wednesday.  Save  you  the  bother  of  com- 
ing around  again.  If  you  don't  go,  sir,  would  you  mind 
dropping  in  again  so  we  can  fix  up  the  record  ?" 

"I'll  go,  if  my  steamer  does !"  I  responded. 

"Yessir.  Thank  you,  sir.  Now,  is  there  anything  I  can 
do  for  you  while  you're  'ere  in  Lunnon,  sir  ?  We're  Allies, 
sir,  you  know." 

I  went  thoughtfully  out  of  that  dim,  spotless  police  sta- 
tion, wondering  a  little  sadly  how  the  minions  of  the  law  in 
a  New  York  police  station  would  treat  an  Englishman  un- 
der similar  circumstances,  and  Whether  an  unknown  desk 
sergeant  would  volunteer  help  to  make  New  York  a  little 
brighter  for  the  visitor.  I  wondered,  too,  if  everything  I 
had  done  and  said  since  I  left  the  city  of  the  ragged  sky- 
line could  stand  beside  the  perfectly  unconscious  gentility 
of  that  policeman.    .    .   . 

Where  does  all  the  copper  and  small  silver  go  in  France  ? 
No  one  who  knows  has  told,  and  no  oiie  else  can  tell.  But 
the  shortage  is  so  great,  the  need  for  small  currency  so 
urgent,  that  practically  every  large  community  has  issued 
its  own  notes  for  small  change,  exactly  as  the  United  States 
was  once  compelled  to  issue  "shin-plasters."  Imagine  sol- 
emn-looking bills  for  five  and  ten  cents !  I  was  told  that  in 


LEFT-OVERS  273 

some  rural  districts  notes  for  as  little  as  two  cents  apiece 
had  also  appeared.  The  bothersome  feature  of  these  minia- 
ture bills  to  the  stranger  is  that  they  are  of  value  only  in 
the  city  or  community  that  issues  them.  Elsewhere  they 
are  mere  '^scraps  of  paper." 

In  September  somebody  with  an  eye  to  saving  time  and 
small  change>  issued  the  order  that  the  railway  ticket 
agents  need  not  make  change  except  at  will.  Instead  of 
saving  anything,  this  merely  gave  peevish  agents  the  chance 
to  vent  their  spleen  on  the  public.  The  clamor  was  instant, 
noisy  and  continuous.  I  heard  one  such  squabble,  which 
left  both  agent  and  traveler  wrathful.  She  was  old  and  fat 
and  covered  with  bundles.  A  long  queue  of  impatient  sol- 
diers, citizens  and  officers  waited  behind  her  for  a  chance 
at  a  ticket  in  the  three  minutes  remaining  before  the 
wickets  closed.  Madame  dropped  her  big  bundles  in  open- 
ing her  pocketbook.  While  the  police  examined  her  permit 
to  travel,  she  counted  out  her  paper  and  silver  and  shoved  it 
at  the  agent.  He  pushed  it  back  through  the  grille  to  her 
with  a  snarl. 

"Too  much !  Seven  eighty-five,  I  said.  Make  change  or 
get  out  r 

"Keep  the  change!"  retorted  Madame  with  spirit,  will- 
ing— amazingly  enough  for  a  thrifty  Frenchwoman — ^to 
waste  three  cents  for  the  sake  of  catching  her  train. 

The  agent  boiled  over.  Thrusting  his  black  whiskers 
through  the  bars  he  shook  them  at  her,  shouting:  "Get 
out!  Get  out!  Get  out!  Next!" 


274  WITH   THEEE   AEMIES 

Madame  refused  to  budge.  She  and  the  agent  struggled 
for  the  ticket,  each  holding  fast  to  an  end  while  the  crowd 
fumed  behind  her. 

^^Give  me  my  ticket  V  she  cried.  "You  make  me  to  lose 
my  train,  camel  V' 

"Camel  yourself !"  roared  the  agent.  "Miss  it  or  make 
change  ?' 

"I  can't !  You  can  keep  the  change !'' 

"Idiot!  Camel!  How  can  I  keep  your  change  when  I 
can't !  I  don't  have  to  !'* 

In  his  rage,  his  fingers  loosed  a  little,  and  Madame 
snatched  her  ticket  through  the  bars  in  shrill  triumph,  fell 
over  her  bundles,  grabbed  them  up,  and  waddled  away  amid 
a  chorus  of  laughter  from  the  crowd,  half  of  whom  missed 
the  train  because  of  the  rumpus. 

There  is  plenty  of  humor  in  Paris  to  salt  the  days  of  war. 
The  jours  maigres — ^meager  days — ^have  been  the  source  of 
endless  quips  and  not  a  few  sous  to  the  delightful  comic 
periodicals,  most  of  which  have  managed  to  weather  the 
storm  of  reduced  circulation  and  advertisements,  and  the 
high  prices  of  necessaries.  First  contact  with  these  -less 
days  is  rather  a  knockout  to  pampered  Americans.  My 
hotel  gravely  accommodated  me  with  the  usual  room  and 
bath.  But  the  hot  water  would  not  run.  I  rang  for  the 
waiter.  One  does  ring  for  strange  things  and  persons  over 
there. 

"What's  the  matter  with  that  hot  water  ?"  I  demanded. 


LEFT-OVEES  276 

"Hot  water,  Monsieur?    You  wish  to  shave?'' 

I  needed  to  shave,  but  I  pointed  to  the  tub  full  of  cold 
water,  indicating  that  I  had  not  drawn  all  that  for  shaving. 

'^Ah /    Pardon!  Pardon,  Monsieur!   But  there 

is  no  hot  water !  One  bathes  now  only  twice  a  week." 

"Twice  a  week !" 

"Oui,  Monsieur,  the  Saturday  and  the  Sunday !" 

"When  I  asked  the  clerk  why  he  had  given  and  charged 
me  for  useless  accommodations,  he  displayed  an  almost 
human  intelligence. 

"Perfectly,  Monsieur,"  he  agreed.  "It  is  of  a  uselessness 
most  of  the  times,  but  is  it  not  that  it  is  of  a  use  that  it  is 
there,  and  ready  when  the  hot  water  comes-to-arrive  and 
Monsieur  wishes,  his  bath  without  having  to  wait  before  the 
ordinary  chamber  of  the  baths  ?" 

One  of  the  papers  suggested  that  since  France  had  days 
without  heat,  without  sweets,  without  meat,  without  hot 
water,  without  this  and  without  that,  the  country  go  one 
step  farther  in  its  heroism  and  demand  one  day  each  week 
without — speeches  in  the  Chamber !  But  nobody,  up  to  the 
time  I  left,  had  dared  suggest  a  day  without  the  "movies" ! 

The  lack  of  sugar  has  had  one  amusing  consequence.  All 
along  the  rue  de  la  Paix,  where  the  highest-priced  jewelers 
in  the  world  have  their  tempting  displays,  little  "sugar- 
safes"  or  fobs  in  solid  gold,  in  platinum,  in  combinations 
of  both  metals — ^but  never  in  the  vulgar  silver! — are  on 
exhibition.  Tiny  things  they  are,  just  big  enough  to  hold 
one  or  two  dominoes  of  sugar,  but  costly  enough  to  make 


276  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

them  as  ridiculous  as  they  are  eagerly  acquired.  The  rich 
and  thoughtless  fill  them  daily  as  they  start  forth  on  their 
promenades,  so  that  if  the  afternoon  tea  be  not  sweet 
enough,  the  "safe''  can  be  opened  and  that  shocking  lack 
supplied. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  I  saw,  and  neglected 
to  set  down  in  its  proper  place,  is  the  big  horse-and-mule 
hospital  behind  the  British  front.  So  much  has  been 
heard  of  the  cruel  treatment  of  animals  in  warfare — ^much 
of  it  entirely  true,  but  also  misleading — that  this  enormous 
life-saving  station  was  a  revelation  to  me,  with  its  long, 
low,  whitewashed,  open-sided  stables,  its  broad  meadows 
of  sweet  grass  where  there  is  ample  room  to  roll  and  kick 
up  and  gallop  about.  Here  are  doctors  and  nurses,  operat- 
ing-rooms and  convalescent  wards,  isolation  pens  and  ex- 
perimental rooms,  exactly  as  in  the  hospitals  where  Tommy 
himself  is  cared  for.  The  patient,  intelligent  brutes — there 
were  twenty-five  hundred  of  them  there  when  I  saw  the 
establishment — seem  to  realize  that  even  when  they  are 
being  hurt,  it  is  for  their  good.  At  least  eighty  per  cent, 
of  the  cases  had  recovered  up  to  that  time.  They  in- 
eluded  injuries  and  ailments  of  every  sort  to  which  horse- 
flesh is  heir:  wounds,  scratches  infected  by  the  mud  of 
northern  France  and  Flanders — ^where  the  fertilizers  of 
ten  centuries  have  bred  poisons  no  constitution  can  with- 
stand— ^bites,  kicks,  broken  legs,  everything.  Pasted  on 
the  pillar  of  each  animal's  stall  is  a  card  giving  its  num- 


LEFT-OVERS  277 

ber,  the  details  of  its  case  and  progress  and  the  other 
usual  data — ^temperature,  diet,  etc.  Here  the  terrors  of 
battle  are  forgotten,  lean  barrels  fill  out  quickly,  fire  re- 
turns to  jaded  eyes,  and  dulled  coats  take  on  a  new 
luster  under  the  assiduous  curryings  of  men  who  love 
and  know  how  to  handle  animals.  One  Cockney  'ostler 
was  polishing  off  a  particular  pet  though  it  was  time  for 
him  to  be  at  his  tea,  instead  of  chatting  with  the  playful 
horse,  who  arched  his  neck  and  stretched  his  bad  leg,  and 
whickered  appreciatively.  If  he  had  been  a  cat,  he  would 
have  purred. 

"Where  was  he  hurt  ?''  I  asked  the  stableman,  as  he  stood 
back. 

""Wipers,  sir,"  the  Cockney  answered,  and  fell  to  comb- 
ing again. 

Wipers!  The  Belgians  call  it  Ypres  (Eepr),  which  de- 
rives from  the  French  term  for  the  elm  trees,  ypern,  that 
used  to  grow  there  in  numbers.  But  British  Thomas  is  no 
etymologist,  no  purist  in  pronunciation.  ^'Wipers?  In 
course,  sir.  They  spells  it  wiv  a  Y,  don't  they?"  And  so 
the  city  will  remain  Wipers  to  the  end  of  time,  whatever 
the  dilettanti  may  call  it ! 

American  Sammy  has  not  been  "over  there"  long  enough 
as  yet  to  develop  any  such  mass  of  loving  myth  as  British 
Tommy  has  gathered  about  himself;  but  already  the  racial 
characteristics  have  appeared,  and  Paris  knows  the  likes 
and  dislikes  of  the  new  Ally.  One  afternoon  between  trips 


278  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

to  the  front,  I  left  the  Eoreign  Office,  which  had  been 
even  more  courteous — and  unresponsive  I — than  usual,  and 
despairingly  accepted  the  invitation  of  a  billboard  an- 
nouncing a  picture  play  given  distinction  by  some  of  the 
foremost  actors  in  France.  It  was  exquisitely  done.  My 
neighbor  in  the  dark  proved  to  be  a  Sammy,  a  rough  dia- 
mond from  one  of  our  largest  cities,  full  of  energy  and 
ideas.  As  the  lights  came  on  he  nodded  recognition  of  my 
American  clothes,  so  easily  distinguished  in  a  French 
crowd. 

"Bum  show,  hey  ?'^  he  ventured. 

I  tried  to  explain  to  him  the  difference  between  good  act- 
ing and  the  painful  antics  of  many  of  our  American  con- 
tortionists of  the  "movies."  He  listened,  respectful  but 
wholly  unconvinced. 

'^Well,  maybe  you're  right,  but  I  don't  wise  up  to  it  a- 
tall.  Maybe  this  is  art.  I  dunno.  I  do  know  one  thing. 
I  know  what  I  like.  This  ain't  it !  Get  me  ?  I  like  'em  t' 
eat  'em  alive  I  If  this  is  the  best  Paris  can  do,  I'm  goin'  t' 
cable  me  old  frien'  Dan  Frohman  to  send  us  over  a  few 
hot  ones." 

Later  on,  I  passed  my  erstwhile  seatmate  emerging  from 
another  moving-picture  "palace"  luridly  placarded  witli 
the  notices  of  a  wild  western  comedy.  With  him  were  half 
a  dozen  other  husky  artillerists.  As  he  caught  sight  of  me, 
he  shouted  joyously : 

"'Lo,  sport  I  I  found  one!  ^Reel  one — seven-reel  live 
wire.   Somepn  doin'  every  foot.   Hey,  boys?" 


LEFT-OVEES  279 

"Betcher  life  V'  they  echoed. 

^^ou  better  not  go  see  it,"  was  his  Parthian  shot  as  the^ 
whistled  off  down  the  Boulevard.  "Might  jar  yuh  I" 

Coming  back  to  Paris  from  one  of  my  trips  to  the  front, 
I  was  fortunate  enough  to  board  a  train  of  permissionaires, 
or  soldiers  released  from  the  mud  and  monotony  for  a  ten- 
day  frolic.  First,  second  and  third  class  carriages  proved 
all  alike  to  them.  When  we  started,  a  big  Canadian  of  the 
railway  engineer  corps,  two  French  medical  officers  and 
myself  were  the  only  occupants  of  our  compartment.  Pres- 
ently in  bounced  four  husky  French  heavy  artillerymen 
with  their  monstrous  packs  and  their  more  monstrous  sa- 
bers. All  were  highly  elated  at  going  home.  The  two  offi- 
cers left  at  the  next  station  after  a  reprimand,  but  the 
poilus,  recovering  quickly,  began  a  mild  jamboree,  singing 
their  drinking  songs,  "firing''  their  howitzers  with  snap- 
ping fingers  and  loud  '^Bourns/*  and  winding  up  with  a 
deafening  'barrage"  or  ^'drumfire"  of  clapping  hands  and 
stamping  feet  while  they  shouted  their  chorus. 

Then  one  hauled  his  saber  out  of  its  scabbard  and  began 
fencing  furiously  with  an  imaginary  hoche,  considerably  to 
the  discomfort  of  the  big  Canadian  and  myself.  "Bit 
thick,  this,"  he  murmured  to  me,  as  the  flashing  blade 
whirled  dangerously  close  to  our  heads  with  a  wild  lurch 
of  the  train.    "Can  you  talk  to  'em,  sir  ?" 

I  ventured  a  gentle  suggestion  to  the  excited  young  ar- 


280  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

tillerist.  For  a  moment  he  glared  at  me;  then  his  emo- 
tion reversed  at  full  speed. 

''Americamr  he  cried,  thumping  the  heavy  sword  back 
into  its  scabbard  with  a  clang  and  a  flourish.  "Monsieur,  I 
salute  you.   Vive  VAmeriquer 

In  two  minutes  we  were  excellent  friends.  As  the  train 
slowed  for  a  station,  the  boy  struggled  into  his  pack,  gruffly 
ordered  his  comrades  to  take  up  theirs,  flung  the  door  open 
and  tumbled  them  all  out — ^to  pile  into  some  other  com- 
partment— with  a  cheery  good-by  and  a  word  about  not 
annoying  an  American  gentleman  with  their  filthy  trench 
clothes  and  rough  manners!  The  Canadian  looked  at 
me  inquiringly. 

"Well,  I'm  damned!"  he  exclaimed  as  the  explanation 
finally  penetrated.  "A  Frenchie!  Why,"  he  shouted,  slap- 
ping a  two-ton  hand  on  my  knee,  "the  blighter  might've 
been  an  English  gentleman  hisself !" 

At  every  station  more  people,  soldiers  and  civilians  alike, 
crowded  in.  Many  of  the  citizens  had  gone  part  way  out 
to  meet  the  permissionaires  they  expected.  Into  my  com- 
partment came  a  hungry,  pasty-faced  young  couple  who 
had  failed  to  meet  their  friends.  They  were  decorated  with 
tawdry  finery  and  cheap  jewelry,  and  smelled  of  the  most 
vicious  perfumery  that  ever  tried  to  dissipate  tKe  odor  of 
stale  tobacco  from  a  stale  car  cushion.  But  how  human 
they  were,  "all  dolled  up"  in  their  pitiful  best  for  the  occa- 
sion, and  grieved  as  good  children  at  their  disappointment ! 
The  husband  tore  apart  a  dirty  paper  package  containing 


Celebration  on  the  third  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne. 
Top — Shows  Field  Marshal  Joffre  in  black  uniform.  Bottom — A 
decorated  grave,  with  veterans  of  the  great  battle  standing  at  salute 

Photographs  by  the  author 


The  famous  trench  theater  at  Verdun,  where  the  horrors  of  war 
were  forgotten  in  remarkable  entertainments 


In  the  woods  of  Verlot,  occupied  by  the  Germans  and 
destroyed  by  AlHed  artillery 


Wanton  destruction.    Folembray  Chateau — Aisne 


LEFT-OVEES  281 

a  bottle  of  wine,  tinned  corned  beef  with  a  Chicago  name 
blazoned  on  it,  a  hunk  of  pasty  gray  war  bread,  and  some 
ancient  cheese.  His  wife  opened  the  tin,  and  cut  her  finger. 
He  sucked  the  injured  member  tenderly  one  moment,  and 
licked  the  grease  from  the  top  of  the  can  next.  Then  he 
piled  it  with  pieces  of  the  meat  he  extracted  with  soiled 
fingers,  and  generously  offered  me  a  meal ! 

When  we  finally  stopped  in  the  smoky,  echoing  train- 
shed  of  the  vast  Gare  du  Nord,  the  platform  became  a  swirl 
through  which  one  could  hardly  move.  All  Paris  seemed 
under  the  flaring  arc-lights  to  greet  the  returning  brave. 
Frantic  women  pulling  crying  children  got  in  the  way  of 
tired-out  baggagemen  and  hurrying  soldiers.  Bags  shot 
from  opened  train  doors  and  knocked  people  over,  or  fell 
underfoot  and  tripped  the  unwary.  Yet  everybody  was 
good-natured.  Laughter  and  tears  mingled  freely  as  the 
throng  slowly  surged  its  impeded  way  through  the  narrow 
wickets. 

Outside  the  station  the  crowd  was  even  denser.  The  ex- 
pectants were  packed  solidly  in  a  black  mass  so  jammed 
that  none  of  them  could  move.  As  we  emerged  the  crowd 
sent  up  a  strange,  almost  animal  cry,  half  roar,  half  bit- 
ter sigh — 

"They're  coming  T 

Magically  a  lane  opened.  Every  neck  was  craned  to  its 
utmost.  Somewhere  in  the  throng  a  woman's  overwrought 
nerves  betrayed  her,  and  she  began  to  cry  shrilly.  Other 
women  caught  the  contagion.  It  might  have  been  a  great 


283  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

funeral,  instead  of  a  joyous  homecoming.  But  how  eagerly 
the  men  were  awaited !  Many  of  them  had  not  seen  home 
or  families  for  ten  months  or  a  year,  and  even  now  the 
waiting  thousands  did  not  know  what  to  expect.  Would  he 
he  there — unwounded — his  old  self   .    .    ,    f 

A  woman  clutched  frantically  at  my  sleeve — I  was  in  my 
trench  clothes — spun  me  completely  around  and  peered 
into  my  face. 

"Non!  Non!  Not  my  mm!"  she  cried,  and  stretched 
again  to  see  over  my  shoulders. 

I  forced  my  way  through  as  gently  as  possible  and  es- 
caped into  the  street,  glad  to  be  clear  of  that  atmosphere 
of  tension.  But  I  carried  away  with  me  something  of  it 
that  still  endures,  something  that  points  even  yet  to  the 
hearts,  not  of  France  alone,  but  of  all  the  militant  Allied 
world :  the  certainty  that  what  the  peoples  have  endured — 
the  waiting,  the  anxiety,  the  privation,  the  heart-hunger 
— has  obliterated  from  their  minds  and  souls  everything 
but  the  raw  essentials. 


CHAPTEK   XVIII 

THE  TIME  IS  OUT  OF  JOINT — 

To-day,  when  the  whole  world  trembles  on  the  verge  of 
dissolution  and  chaos,  every  man  with  a  fountain  pen  or  a 
typewriter  seems  to  be  quoting  Hamlet  to  himself — 

"The  time  is  out  of  joint :  0  cursed  spite. 
That  ever  I  was  born  to  set  it  right !" 

Theories  and  panaceas  are  advanced  in  every  periodical 
and  review,  so  why  should  I  not  join  the  chorus?  The 
theories  advanced  here  may  never  amount  to  anything  as 
practical  suggestions,  may  never  have  the  slightest  consid- 
eration by  the  controllers  of  the  world's  destiny;  but  if 
they  serve  to  make  the  innocent  bystander  wake  up  to  his 
responsibility  for  the  ultimate  result,  they  will  not  have 
gone  wholly  wide  of  the  mark. 

I  have  reached  the  end  of  what  I  have  seen,  of  what  I 
have  heard  along  the  battle  fronts  in  France  and  Belgium, 
of  some  of  the  things  worth  telling  that  came  under  my 
observation  in  the  cities  far  behind  and  close  up  to  the 
lines.  But  this  has  all  been  merely  the  recitation — the  in- 
terpretation, perhaps — of  the  visible  and  audible.  I  have 
not  been  able  to  work  into  any  of  the  preceding  chapters 

283 


284  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

more  than  a  hint  here  and  there  of  the  real  things,  of  the 
vital  issues  this  war  of  the  worlds  has  conjured  up  out  of 
chaos  into  the  minds  of  men  and  women,  both  at  the 
front  and  far  from  it.  One  can  not  picture  a  surgeon  weep- 
ing over  a  car  full  of  mangled  soldiers,  and  be  much  of  a 
psychologist  at  the  same  time  without  spoiling  the  canvas. 
Now,  however,  with  the  vivid  and  the  highly-colored  behind 
me,  I  can,  I  must,  go  deeper  than  the  superficial.  For  the 
men  in  the  trenches,  the  women  in  the  cities,  the  very  chil- 
dren in  the  street,  are  thinking. 

What  are  they  thinking  about  ?  Why,  the  war,  of  course ; 
but  not  only  of  the  war  one  sees  and  hears  endlessly.  They 
are  thinking  back  to  its  causes,  forward  to  the  inevitable  re- 
construction it  means  throughout  the  world.  Never  before 
in  the  history  of  mankind  was  there  such  an  era  of  sober 
individual  thought  about  individual  responsibilities  as  well 
as  individual  rights  and  privileges.  Not  even  the  brightest 
days  of  the  Florentine  Renaissance  saw  men  anything  like 
so  keenly  awake  to  the  realities  of  life,  for  then  the  change 
was  one  of  a  slow,  gradual  dawning  of  self-conscious  spir- 
itual assertion  made  possible  by  study  and  mutual  further- 
ance of  progress. 

To-day,  greed  and  hatred  have  brought  the  whole  world 
up  with  a  terrific  shock,  made  it  realize  clearly  that  we 
stand  at  the  precipice  of  the  old  regime.  So  the  men  who 
have  fought  and  those  who  have  fed  and  supplied  them,  the 
mothers  who  have  sent  their  sons,  and  the  wives  and  sisters 
who  have  suffered  in  silence,  stand  shivering  on  the  edge, 


THE    TIME    IS    OUT    OF   JOINT—         385 

fully  conscious  of  the  black  ruin  below,  and  groping  for 
a  solution  of  their  difficulties.  The  old  things  are  to  go — 
we  know  that ! — and  with  them  our  old  habits  of  mind  and 
thought.  War  is  blowing  the  cobwebs  out  of  our  brains  and 
leaving  them  with  cleaner  corners,  less  obstructed  vision. 
We  can  never  be  the  same  again,  any  of  us.  But  whether 
we  be  intelligent  enough  to  reason  matters  out  for  our- 
selves, or  intellectual  hermit-crabs  hiding  in  some  bigger 
creature's  shell  of  philosophy,  we  can  see  on  every  side  the 
plain  signs  of  the  change,  of  the  revision  of  our  time- 
honored  estimates  of  both  life  and  men. 

The  interdependence  of  peoples  has  been  emphasized  and 
made  clear  as  never  before;  the  soul  of  each  country  has 
been  revealed  to  itself  as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  the  family 
of  nations;  in  consequence,  each  man  and  woman  desires 
a  peace  which  will  rid  him  and  her  of  the  burden  of  war, 
and  of  preparation  against  whatever  milkary  monster. 
So,  first  of  all,  the  peace  treaty  will  have  to  be  an  unequivo- 
cal guarantee  of  permanent  common  decency.  The  greatest 
danger  to  that  permanence  will  be  our  traditional  generos- 
ity to  a  vanquished  foe.  In  the  elation  of  victory,  we  may 
be  prone  to  overlook  the  suffering,  the  cost,  the  disturbance 
of  everything  worth  while,  and  recall  only  the  unfortunate 
chivalric  utterance — so  typical  of  that  generous  attitude — * 
that  we  are  fighting  the  German  Government,  not  the  Ger- 
man people. 

Look  across  the  Flanders  fields  among  the  poppies,  and 
see  the  compact  little  beds  of  crosses,  white  among  the  scar- 


286;  WITH   THEEE   AEMIES 

let  flowers.  Look  over  at  the  trenches  and  see  the  human 
beings  still  fighting  there  with  poison  gas,  with  flame- 
throwers, with  maces  and  knives  and  bombs.  Consider  the 
wounded  in  the  hospitals,  the  sick  and  the  hungry  in  the 
cities  behind  the  lines,  the  shredded  child  victims  of  the 
air-raiders,  the  factories  kept  from  their  proper  construc- 
tive work  by  the  destructive  demands  of  war  work,  and 
operated  by  women.  Ponder  all  these;  meditate  upon  a 
future  filled  with  this  same  sort  of  thing,  but  worse ;  dream 
visions  of  a  greater  war,  so  infinitely  more  terrible  than 
this  that  we  should  see  England,  France,  Italy,  America, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  little  peoples,  go  flaming  down  to  ruin 
without  the  slightest  possibility  of  coming  back  for  ages — 
and  no  one  left  on  earth  but  the  Hun  and  his  impotent 
slaves.  Is  it  not  more  than  worth  while,  then,  to  see  that 
the  only  thing  which  brought  about  this  war,  and  which 
could  ever  bring  about  such  another  condition,  be  so  hob- 
bled and  restricted  that  it  will  eventually  die  of  malnutri- 
tion? 

In  considering  peace  we  must  face  the  fact  squarely  that 
the  Teutonic  Powers  have  won  the  war  up  to  the  present 
writing  because  of  their  profound  study  of  exactly  what 
they  wanted,  and  their  corresponding  determination  of  the 
ways  and  means  by  which  what  they  wanted  could  be  ob- 
tained. Their  strategy  has  been  a  sort  of  sublimated  pol- 
itics, a  higlily-refined  political  and  national  economy  of 
the  most  meticulous  detail,  applied  to  martial  conquest  and 
progress.    That  it  will  fail  in  the  long  run  is  due  not  to 


THE   TIME    IS    OUT    OF   JOINT—.         287 

any  fundamental  defect  in  its  logic,  but  to  the  defect  in  its 
premises,  which,  argue  that  one  member  of  a  family  can 
ignore  the  rights  of  all  the  rest.  But  in  considering  the 
problems  of  the  afterward,  however  disastrously  the  Ger- 
man policy  fail,  we  can  not  ignore  the  psychology  which 
made  that  plan  possible,  nor  overlook  the  fact  that  Germany 
is  turning  the  same  acute  intelligence  upon  her  after-war 
problems  that  she  devoted  to  her  preparations  for  war. 

A  proof  of  her  awareness  and  subtlety  was  going  the 
rounds  of  the  Boulevards  in  Paris  just  before  I  left,  a  tale 
utterly  beyond  human  imagination  a  few  years  ago.  Ac- 
cording to  this  story,  a  German  drummer  called  upon  a 
Swiss  merchant  who  had  been  one  of  his  best  customers. 
The  Swiss  was  polite  but  frigid — "I  am  sorry.  I  am  not 
in  the  market  just  now."  Again  and  again  the  German 
begged  for  an  order — ^half  an  order — a  quarter  of  an  order 
of  the  old-time  size.  Finally  he  stared  the  obdurate  mer- 
chant coldly  in  the  eye  and  said :  "So  I  You  think  because 
we  have  carried  out  our  doctrine  of  military  necessity,  that 
we  are  savages,  devils,  all  that  sort  of  thing !" 

"JSTo,  no !  Not  at  all !"  was  the  reply,  born  of  the  caution 
of  a  man  who  lives  next  door  to  Germany. 

"Well,  you  think  so,  anyway.  You  have  been  influenced 
by  English  propaganda.  All  right — no  matter.  I  will 
prove  to  you  that  we  are  not  devils.  Have  you  any  one  in 
any  of  our  prison  camps  in  whom  you  are  interested  ?" 

The  Swiss  hesitated,  remembered  his  wife's  nephew. 
"Yes,"  he  answered,  and  named  man  and  camp. 


288  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

''All  right,"  was  the  amazing  reply.  "Give  me  your  word 
that  when  the  boy  comes  back,  you  will  give  me  half  as  big 
an  order  as  you  did  last  time,  and  I'll  see  that  he  is  re- 
leased." 

Not  ten  days  later  the  boy's  joyful  exclamations  over 
the  telephone  from  another  Swiss  city  proved  the  drum- 
mer's ability  to  carry  out  his  promise. 

If  Germany  will  go  to  the  length  of  using  prisoners  of 
war  as  a  bribe  to  win  back  vanished  trade,  to  what  lengths 
will  her  subtlety  and  skill  not  go  in  establishing  new  con- 
nections the  world  over?  Until  the  Allied  Powers  thor- 
oughly realize  and  value  her  psychology,  until  they  wake 
up  to  the  need  of  exhaustive  preparation  for  ''economic 
strategy"  of  their  own  as  an  advance  measure,  the  future 
will  remain  uncertain.  Any  waiting,  any  putting  off  of  the 
formulation  of  the  bases  of  peace  is  folly  of  the  blindest 
sort.  The  mere  resisting  of  the  German  arms  has  brought 
no  decisive  victory.  The  mere  refusal  at  the  treaty  table 
to  give  Germany  what  she  will  demand  will  get  the  world 
nowhere. 

But  it  is  quite  possible  to  develop  a  political  and  ec- 
onomic strategy  before  the  day  of  protocols  arrives:  to  be 
ready  with  such  a  plan  that  when  Germany  appears  at  the 
table,  we  can  say  to  her:  "You  are  beaten.  You  have  no 
terms  to  propose  to  which  we  will  listen.  This  is  our  pro- 
posal. Accept  it,  lay  down  your  arms  for  good,  or  be  out- 
lawed definitely  until  you  acquire  common  sense." 

Against  such  an  attitude  there  is  no  possible  rebuttal. 


THE   TIME    IS    OUT    OF   JOINT—         289 

Moreover,  such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Allies  is  no 
wicked,  selfish,  individual  desire  to  play  the  hog.  It  is  the 
controlling  of  the  world  by  the  majority  for  the  good  of  the 
majority.  No  one  thinks  of  disputing  the  laws  that  refuse 
to  permit  arson  or  the  running  at  large  of  mad  dogs.  The 
man  who  proposed  to  upset  such  statutes  would  properly 
be  adjudged  of  unsound  mind.  Correspondingly,  the  indi- 
vidual nation  that  has  tried  to  upset  the  machinery  which 
makes  life  possible  for  all  the  rest  of  mankind,  must  be  re- 
strained. In  previous  wars  the  making  of  peace  was  com- 
paratively simple  because  both  the  times  were  different  and 
all  the  men  involved  were  more  or  less  human  beings.  To- 
day the  civilized  world  must  make  peace  with  a  people  who, 
no  matter  how  thoroughly  they  may  have  been  whipped 
into  submission,  will  still  retain  a  goodly  percentage  of  the 
educated  devil  who  can  not  be  trusted  even  when  chained. 
So  peace  to  be  peace  must  take  account  of  a  far  longer 
and  infinitely  more  complex  future  than  ever  men  dreamed 
of  before. 

Whatever  the  new  world  to  be  bom  there  on  the  treaty 
table  is  going  to  be,  the  Allies  must  be  united  in  the  de- 
cision that  they  shall  be  its  parents  and  its  educators  and 
trainers.  No  other  course  is  possible.  But  that  course, 
whatever  material  form  its  doctrines  take,  will  not  be  pos- 
sible until  the  public  opinion  of  America  is  thoroughly 
awakened  and  aroused  to  the  need  of  preparation  for  ex- 
actly that  emergency.  In  other  words,  America  must  real- 
ize, as  most  of  Europe  has  already  realized,  the  vital  fact 


290  WITH    THREE    AEMIES 

that  a  definite  and  cohesive  control  of  all  opportunities, 
wherever  and  whatever  they  be,  by  organized  society  for  its 
own  good,  automatically  does  away  with  war  and  outbreaks 
of  violence. 

With  all  this  in  mind,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  peace 
to  come  can  not  be  either  a  just  peace  or  a  retributive  one : 
not  just,  in  the  sense  that  a  just  peace  would  annihilate 
the  whole  martial  Germany,  root  and  branch;  not  retribu- 
tive, in  that  it  can  not — ^perhaps  I  should  say,  will  not — en- 
force conditions  to  which  no  people  would  accede.  But  it 
will  have  to  be  the  sort  of  peace  which  takes  small  account 
of  the  selfish  desires  and  personal  ambitions  of  personages 
and  Idngs  and  military  or  political  leaders:  a  peace  that 
will  be  the  surge  of  humanity,  ruthless  and  implacable  to- 
ward injustice  and  inhumanity.  It  must  be  the  sort  of 
peace — and  every  awakened  soldier  of  all  the  millions 
knows  it — that  will  satisfy  and  be  permanent  because  it 
must  be  tased  upon  right  and  honor  and  truth,  not  upon 
mere  violence  and  the  wilful  exercise  of  power. 

Peace — and  what  then? 

Why,  then  we  shall  be  only  verging  upon  the  threshold 
of  a  conflict  whose  limits  are  limitless,  whose  field  is  the 
world.  On  every  hand  the  signs  are  plain  of  the  reactions 
of  the  popular  imagination  to  every  phase  of  this  post- 
bellum  struggle.  But  we  still  need  to  see  the  necessity  for 
breadth — the  greatest  possible  hreadth — in  the  programs 
of  commercial  adjustment  and  the  political  and  social  re- 
organization and  betterment  soon  to  come.  Reconstruction, 


THE   TIME    IS    OUT    OF   JOINT-^         291 

always  tlie  aftermatli  of  war,  means  more  to-day  than  ever, 
for  it  indicates  the  arising  of  a  world-wide  situation  so  full 
of  menace  that  every  man  and  woman  must  be  not  only  cool 
of  judgment  but  open  of  heart  and  mind.  What  happens 
here  in  America  will  be  echoed  and  re-echoed  in  Europe; 
what  happens  there  will  profoundly  influence  the  United 
States.  We  may  avoid  the  ^^entangling"  alliances  of  history, 
but  we  can  no  more  avoid  influencing  or  being  influenced 
than  we  can  hold  aloof  from  the  world  and  expect  to  go  on 
living. 

That  this  readjustment  and  amelioration  can  be  effected 
without  friction  is  to  presuppose  intellect  and  intelligence 
of  superhuman  quality.  The  whole  social  structure  is  go- 
ing to  be,  not  torn  down,  let  us  hope,  but  remodeled  and  re- 
built from  cellar  to  attic.  Necessarily  whole  nations  will 
be  incommoded,  frightened,  perhaps  even  injured  seriously 
in  a  material  sense,  with  the  consequence  of  many  panicky 
objections  and  balkings  which  will  merely  delay  what  can 
not  possibly  be  deterred  or  prevented.  Things  which  are 
dispensable  will  clutter  the  path  at  first  with  their  boul- 
ders, but  a  new  public  opinion  will  gradually  put  them 
courageously  to  one  side,  whatever  the  effort  and  cost,  and 
hew  straight  to  the  line.  The  work  will  be  slow  and  hard, 
and  privilege — whether  corporate  or  proletarian— will  put 
up  as  stiff  a  fight  as  the  armed  enemy. 

It  will  be  useless.  If  every  one  could  only  realize  that 
the  war  has  merely  hastened  and  crystallized  all  the  domes- 
tic and  international  unrest  of  the  past  twenty  years  or 


292  WITH   THREE   ARMIES 

more,  how  much  easier  the  work  would  be !  We  are  think- 
ing and  talking  to-day  of  things  as  commonplaces  which 
were  undreamed  of  even  five  years  ago.  Russia  swept  liquor 
out  with  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  and  the  world  stood  amazed 
at  such  a  miracle.  To-day  we  nod  undisturbed  approval 
when  the  United  States  calmly  appropriates  railroads,  fac- 
tories, food  supplies,  tells  us  what  we  may  eat,  what  we 
must  do,  how  much  of  our  surplus  funds  we  must  surren- 
der. And  this  new  nationalization,  this  control  of  in- 
dustries and  utilities  now  worked  solely  for  the  public  weal, 
will  probably  not  be  quickly  given  over  when  peace  comes. 
Instead,  we  shall  perhaps  see  a  still  further  regulation  of 
life  and  society. 

By  this  I  must  not  in  any  way  be  understood  as  a  cham- 
pion of  socialism  who  looks  forward  to  any  permanently 
radical  departure  from  the  inescapable  laws  of  equilibrium 
and  the  human  factor.  It  is  simply  that  the  logic  of  cir- 
cumstances demands  experimenting,  and  we  seem  likely  to 
go  upon  the  political  and  economic  vivisection  table  for 
lack  of  accurate  knowledge  of  what  to  do.  When  the  more 
or  less  painful  operation  and  convalescence  are  survived,  we 
shall  know,  and  quite  definitely,  to  what  extent  the  experi- 
ment has  proved  beneficial.  Our  only  fear  need  be  of  the 
enthusiasm  the  vivisectors  may  display.  They  may  begin 
on  an  inflamed  tonsil  and  end  by  slitting  out  the  national 
appendix — an  operation  not  actually  called  for,  but  offer- 
ing irresistible  temptation  while  the  knives  are  yet  sharp 
and  the  anesthetics  effective. 


THE   TIME    IS    OUT    OP   JOINT—         S93 

Yet  there  is  one  reassuring  feature  in  the  outlook.  From 
our  very  beginning  we  have  never  yet  taken  a  false,  back- 
ward step.  Our  progress  has  always  been  true  progress, 
always  a  steady  going  forward.  Whenever  crisis  has  come, 
the  decision  of  the  country  has  been  both  wise  politically 
and  right  morally.  Surely,  with  all  that  the  marvelous 
nineteenth  century  has  contributed  to  our  intelligence  in 
the  twentieth,  we  can  not  discount  the  lessons  of  history 
and  look  forward  to  turning  back ! 


CHAPTER   XIX 

WILL  THE  END  CEOWN  THE  WORK? 

^'Once  upon  a  time/'  as  the  fairy  tales  begin,  there  was 
a  poet.  He  had  soul  and  imagination  enough — as  all  poets 
should  have — ^to  look  through  a  spring  rainstorm  and  see 
something  more  than  the  drops  of  water  which  merely  wet 
the  average  man.    So  he  sang  blithely — 

"It  isn't  raining  rain  to  me. 
It's  raining  violets !" 

Men  have  dreamed  since  the  days  of  Adam's  apple,  and 
though  it  is  not  given  to  all  of  us  to  see  the  violets  in  the 
downpour,  as  the  poet  saw  them,  we  are  dreaming  now,  the 
world  over,  of  something  apparently  as  impossible  three  or 
four  years  ago  as  a  rain  of  violets.  The  tighter  we  cling  to 
our  dream  of  a  millennium  coming  out  of  holocaust,  and  the 
more  intangible  the  vision  seems,  or  the  flimsier  the  stuff 
of  which  it  is  made,  the  stronger  and  more  tangible  it  be- 
comes; the  dream  of  fantasy  becoming  the  waking  dream, 
the  day-dream,  and  gradually  the  reality  whose  accom- 
plishment is  fully  within  our  human  grasp. 

A  century  ago  the  French  masses  dreamed  in  terms  of 
Libetty,  Fraternity,  Equality,  and  though  the  dreams  these 
words  inspired  have  never  yet  been  fully  realized,  their  es- 

294 


WILL  THE  END  CEOWN  THE  WORK?      295 

sence  has  profoundly  modified  the  constitution  of  modern 
society.  And  yet,  when  one  looks  back  at  the  horrors  of  that 
period — ^the  world,  apparently,  never  takes  a  forward  stride 
except  through  blood — ^it  must  seem  to  every  thoughtful 
student  that  notwithstanding  the  aims  of  the  revolutionists 
were  spiritual,  the  results  they  obtained  were  largely  mate- 
rial. Though  the  people  of  the  world  quickly  learned  they 
possessed  certain  inalienable  rights  aside  from  those  un- 
graciously conceded  by  their  rulers,  they  failed  through 
their  own  ineptitude  to  exercise  these  newly-won  powers 
and  forces  to  the  full. 

To-day  we  are  faced  with  certain  analogies.  The  old 
regime  of  social  injustice  with  its  economic  unrest  has  fes- 
tered itself  to  a  head.  After  the  war  is  over,  these  old 
things  must  go;  will  go,  with  more  or  less  violence,  as  we 
develop  wisdom  and  foresight.  And  this  time  we  can  not 
suffer  ineptitude  to  hamper  the  results.  The  one  vital 
question  we  must  answer  for  the  sake  of  posterity  is  not  as 
to  material  changes — big  and  important  as  these  have  be- 
come, even  to  the  threatening  of  national  well-being — but 
how  far  the  new  spirit  to  be  evoked  after  the  war  will  be 
genuinely  spiritual  and  correspondingly  efficient  for  future 
peace. 

On  a  purely  material  basis  a  very  satisfactory  arrange- 
ment could  be  made  even  now,  while  the  blood  still  trickles 
from  Germany's  vicious  hands — satisfactory,  that  is,  for 
the  time  being  to  a  world  sick  at  heart  and  weary  beyond 
expression  of  fighting.     Twenty  years  or  so  hence  would 


296  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

see  all  civilization  strangled  by  those  same  vicious  hands. 
What  men  hope  for  and  dream  of  to-day  is  no  such  chimer- 
ical peace  as  that,  no  such  gross  solution  of  a  problem  in- 
soluble by  the  familiar  formulae  of  secret  diplomacy  and 
spheres  of  influence,  etc.  We  must  have  something  more, 
something  better,  something  higher — a  peace  founded  upon 
the  more  vital  things  and  recognizing,  not  States  or  King- 
doms or  debatable  figures  of  armament  and  commercial  re- 
sources, but  metaphysical  resources  measured  in  terms  of 
soul.  The  war  has  shown  baldly,  horridly,  the  failure  of 
the  physical  to  dominate  the  spiritual. 

The  German  guns  that  blasted  the  forts  of  Liege  and 
^amur  out  of  existence  and  slaughtered  their  garrisons  or 
turned,  them  into  gibbering  idiots,  could  not  extinguish  the 
spirit  of  heroic  Belgium.  The  long-continued  onslaughts 
about  Verdun,  where  six  hundred  thousand  German  soldiers 
reached  the  goal  and  found  it  a  gravestone,  never  for  a  mo- 
ment threw  the  magnificent  spirit  of  France  into  either 
panic  or  retreat.  The  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  and  the 
Sussex  merely  recruited  the  British  Navy,  and  fired  its  men 
anew  with  the  spirit  that  never  dies.  So  arms  are  a  failure 
against  the  intangible  soul  which  men  know  better  to-day 
than  they  ever  did  before — and  without  the  aid  of  dogma 
or  canonical  precept. 

And  the  civil  population  has  rediscovered  its  soul;  is 
digging  it  out  of  its  encrusting  selfishness  and  ignorance. 
There  is  ample  practical  demonstration  of  this  on  every 
hand.   Never  in  history  have  the  things  been  done  for  sol- 


AVILL  THE  END  CROWN  THE  WORK?      297 

diers  and  sailors  that  are  being  done  to-day.  Who  ever 
heard  before  of  "Smileage  Books/'  or  libraries,  or  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  huts  on  the  present  scale,  or  the  thousand  other 
things  the  youth  of  to-day  in  the  new  American  Army 
have  provided  for  them  at  practically  no  cost  to  themselves  ? 
Who  ever  heard  of  such  moral  and  spiritual  safeguards  as 
surround  these  boys  of  to-day?  In  1898  the  men  took 
care  of  themselves  or  they  were  not  cared  for.  Their  amuse- 
ments and  leaves  were  not  censored.  A  man  in  uniform 
could  drink  so  long  as  he  could  pay.  Nobody  dreamed  of 
obliterating  vicious  influences  within  five  miles  of  the 
camps.  If  somebody  had  suggested  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut  as 
a  necessity,  there  would  have  been  a  howl  of  protest  from 
the  men  against  what  they  would  have  considered  an  en- 
deavor to  ram  religion  down  their  throats,  willy-nilly. 
Moreover,  the  Spanish  War  soldier  would  have  regarded 
such  things  as  attempts  to  "baby"  him,  to  make  him  a 
mollycoddle,  and  he  would  have  resented  them  with  a  fiery 
consciousness  of  his  own  virility  and  pride. 

The  drafted  American  of  1917  has  no  such  false  senti- 
ment. The  drift  of  our  American  civilization  has  been, 
however  little  we  recognized  it,  steadily  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. The  consequence  is  inevitable.  The  soldier  of  the 
present  is  no  less  splendidly  virile  and  self-reliant,  no  less 
imbued  with  courage  and  intelligence,  than  his  brother  of 
twenty  years  ago.  But  he  will  emerge  from  the  struggle, 
not  merely  physically  more  a  man  than  when  he  entered, 
but  with  a  finer  and  stronger  spiritual  nature  because  of 


298  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

these  very  influences  which,  at  first,  did  come  as  a  shock  to 
many  of  us  who  had  not  realized  fully  the  growth  and  de- 
velopment of  the  national  spirit.  In  1898  the  man  who 
went  in  a  day  laborer  came  out  a  day  laborer.  In  1918, 
the  man  who  goes  in  a  ditch-digger  may  come  out  a  first- 
class  artisan  or  engineer  or  even  a  theologian  full  of  poetry ! 
Many  of  the  Allied  soldiers  have  already  come  out  of  the 
contest  with  amazingly  changed  vocations  as  well  as  new 
souls,  shining  and  clean,  from  which  the  dross  of  their  old 
ones  has  been  thoroughly  purged. 

Some  of  us  have  seen  for  ourselves,  all  of  us  have  been 
told,  that  the  men  in  the  lines  are  thinking  constantly 
about  the  essentials  of  life.  But  what  are  these  essentials  ? 
How  may  we  distinguish  them  so  clearly  from  the  non- 
essentials that  we  need  never  confuse  the  two  ?  Is  there  any 
necromancer's  formula  by  which  the  slowest-witted  dolt  can 
be  made  to  comprehend  and  act  upon  them  ?  There  is !  and 
every  man  has  that  necromancy  within  himself.  Essentials 
— what  aro  they  but  home,  country,  fraternity,  God  ?  What 
man  is  there  among  the  soldiers  who  is  not  willing  to  make 
the  ultimate  sacrifice  to  save  his  family  from  the  hideous 
fate  that  overtook  the  luckless  families  of  Belgium  and 
Serbia,  Poland  and  northern  Erance?  What  man  is  there 
among  them  who  does  not  understand  that  his  country  and 
what  it  stands  for  means  more  to  him  than  life  itself? 
What  man  is  there  among  them  not  alive  to  the  interde- 
pendence of  nations,  to  the  vital  necessity  that  each  under- 
stand and  help  the  other?     What  man  is  there  among 


WILL  THE  END  CROWN  THE  WORK?      299 

them  who  has  stood  under  the  living  hell  made  by  the  guns, 
or  bowed  his  head  over  some  fiendish  atrocity,  without 
reaching  out  for  God? 

The  vast  starry  spaces  of  the  night,  the  endless  hours 
under  freezing  rain  in  an  exposed  L.  P.  (Listening  Post) 
out  beyond  the  wire,  the  nerve-stretching  days  of  waiting 
in  support  trenches,  and  the  crouching  agonies  of  trying 
to  make  a  tin  hat  cover  one's  whole  enormous  body  when 
the  trench  is  going  up  in  volcanic  outbursts,  have  com- 
pletely reconstructed  the  men's  minds  and  ideas.  The  class 
distinctions  that  applied  in  those  peaceful  days  when  the 
muleteer  would  not  have  hobnobbed  with  the  gentleman 
have  vanished  automatically,  and  between  men  the  only 
class  distinction  remaining  is  one  of  spirit,  the  only  consid- 
eration one  of  devotion  to  duty  and  personal  courage. 
Under  such  conditions  the  individual, 

"Cook's  son,  duke's  son,  son  of  a  belted  earl'^ 

sees  his  fellow  soldier  not  as  Private  This  or  Captain  That, 
not  as  an  ex-farrier  or  clerk  or  leisurely  ^'high-roller"  with 
a  fraternity  pin  and  an  A.  B.,  but  as  a  human  being  with 
the  same  very  human  emotions  and  capacities  as  his  own. 
And  all  these  men  have  realized  through  the  cannon's 
mouth  what  no  preaching  or  teaching  could  have  made 
them  see — that  this  war  is  more  of  a  moral  upheaval  than 
anything  else.  They  have  reacted  to  it  accordingly.  The 
men  in  the  Allied  trenches  have  no  illusions  as  to  a  "sordid 
war  of  commerce"  or  capitalism.  They  have  come  to  under- 


300  WITH   THREE    ARMIES 

stand  the  difference  between  themselves  and  their  enemies : 
the  abysmal  gulf  between  the  State  they  represent  and  the 
State  represented  by  their  foes;  on  the  one  hand,  protag- 
onists of  a  civilization  which  teaches  that  the  individual  is 
above  the  State,  which  exists  for  him;  on  the  other,  the 
driven  cattle  who  know  they  exist  only  for  the  glorification 
and  use  of  their  State  and  Sovereign. 

The  moment  when  the  onrush  of  genuine  democracy  can 
no  longer  be  stayed,  is  coming.  And  it  will  be  not  merely 
a  talkative  and  vapid  democracy  for  show  purposes,  but  the 
deep-seated,  God-given  democracy  whose  terms  were  out- 
lined on  a  green  hill  in  Palestine  nineteen  hundred  and 
some  odd  years  ago  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Until 
this  war  began  such  a  dream  was  flimsy  and  vaporous.  No 
one  could  see  how  such  an  idealized  condition  was  to  be 
brought  about,  if  ever.  The  air  was  surcharged  continually 
with  thunder  and  saber  rattlings  here  and  there,  while  tlie 
prophets  and  the  Church  were  '^clouds  without  water.''  The 
spiritual  atmosphere  was  full  of  haze,  an  unkind  haze  that 
veiled  the  abyss  right  ahead. 

The  conflict  has  cleared  all  that  away.  The  Church, 
which  was  being  slowly  strangled  and  desiccated,  has  been 
quickened  and  inspired.  Religion  is  no  longer  a  matter  of 
the  acceptance  of  man-made  creeds,  of  lip-service  without 
comprehension,  of  the  strait  ecclesiasticism  the  past  has 
proved  not  to  have  the  marrow  men  yearned  for  whenever 
they  listened  at  all  to  its  message.    Religion  now  means  a 


WILL  THE  END  CROWN  THE  WORK?      301 

simple  faith  and  courageous  service  that  links  mankind 
with  its  God  through  the  understanding  of  life  and  its 
promises,  through  a  sense  of  individual  responsibility.  Can 
we  doubt  the  result?  There  can  be  but  one  if  the  revived 
and  inspired  Church  takes  wise,  firm,  clear-sighted  ad- 
vantage of  the  receptive  attitude  of  men  to-day.  It  can  not 
fail  to  lead  them — perhaps  by  millions — out  into  the  light, 
and  thus  make  "democracy  safe  for  the  world."  And  when 
both  the  world  is  "safe  for  democracy"  and  "democracy 
safe  for  the  world,"  we  shall  have  a  world  freed  forever 
from  the  terrible  menace  of  secret  diplomacy,  of  decisions 
of  war  or  peace  in  the  hands  of  the  little  groups  who 
neither  serve  nor  suffer,  of  the  unnumbered  things  that  for 
ages  have  made  for  misery  and  poverty  and  helplessness, 
and,  worst  of  all,  for  perpetual  fear. 

Think  of  what  that  sort  of  a  world  means — without  fear! 
A  world  in  which  amicable  discussion  and  calm,  unbiased 
law  control  the  action  of  its  offspring ;  a  world  in  which  no 
one  may  offend  the  least  of  his  companions  in  the  concert 
of  nations  because  of  the  stalwarts  pledged  against  such  a 
thing;  a  world  without  a  single  national  criminal,  because 
international  crime  will  be  impossible  in  its  enlightened 
state!  Utopia?  The  Millennium  ?  Not  altogether !  But  the 
steady  onward  sweep  of  a  civilization  which  will  gradually 
purify  itself,  and  so  become  increasingly  beneficent,  can  no 
more  be  halted  now  than  we  can  stay  the  run  of  the  tides. 
For  this  is  a  tide  in  itself,  "a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men. 


302  WITH    THREE    ARMIES 

which,  taken  at  the  flood/'  will  lead  to  as  thorough  a  sweet- 
ening of  national  life  as  battle  has  led  to  the  sweetening  of 
the  souls  of  the  individual  soldiers. 

We  shall  find  back  of  every  change  which  becomes  per- 
manent that  spiritual  force  without  which  no  nation  can 
ever  permanently  succeed.  We  shall  be  unable  to  close  our 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  whatever  superstructure  of  law  and 
convention  be  reared,  it  will  stand  upon  those  eternal  prin- 
ciples enunciated  by  Washington  and  Lincoln,  who  saw 
democracy  not  as  an  inert  thing,  but  as  a  living,  growing, 
increasingly  beautiful  principle  and  ideal,  inextinguishable 
and  inexpungable.  To  so  lofty  a  conception  nothing  is  im- 
possible, whether  it  be  international  courts,  international 
police,  international  reciprocity  and  control  of  the  vital 
resources  of  the  world — in  a  word,  international  fraternity 
and  intimacy. 

And  for  us  of  America,  who  are  a  democracy  already ;  for 
us  who  must  terminate  the  war,  give  the  death-blow  to  mili- 
tarism and  autocracy;  for  us  who  already  enjoy — without 
much  sober  thanksgiving,  unfortunately — many  privileges 
to  which  Europe  is  as  yet  a  stranger — ^what  is  there  for  us 
in  victory,  beyond  our  physical  safety  in  the  years  to  come  ? 

There  are  two  things ;  aye,  three.  There  is  the  establish- 
ing upon  so  firm  a  basis  that  they  can  never  be  controverted 
the  safety  and  beneficence  of  our  institutions  and  form  of 
government.  By  our  success,  won  through  young  men  who 
are  both  the  product  and  the  life  of  these  institutions,  we 
shall  prove  that  the  State  instituted  for  work  and  for 


WILL  THE  END  CEOWN  THE  WORK?      303 

peace ;  for  the  sanctity  of  the  home  and  the  right  of  the  in- 
dividual to  live  his  own  life  without  interference,  either 
with  his  fellows  or  by  them;  for  the  purpose  of  protecting 
and  encouraging  and  uplifting  its  individual  citizens,  is 
the  only  form  of  government  that  can  endure.  There  is, 
in  the  second  place,  the  joy  that  comes  to  every  honest  soul 
from  victory  won  on  behalf  of  right,  with  its  corresponding 
discipline  to  his  own  inmost  man,  making  him  abler  and 
keener  on  behalf  of  the  principles  for  which  he  has  already 
fought,  less  tolerant  of  anything  subversive  of  them.  And 
last  of  all  there  is  the  stimulus  of  the  new  regime  and  op- 
portunity, to  urge  every  man  on  to  a  searching  of  himself 
and  a  proving  of  his  abilities  to  keep  pace  with  the  fledg- 
ling soul  of  his  Country. 

We  are  being  reborn  in  this  struggle.  The  American 
Renaissance  dates  from  1917.  Its  power  in  the  world  of 
thought,  of  spiritual  achievement,  will  date  from  the  sign- 
ing of  peace.  And  then  we  shall  see  that  the  joy  of  libera- 
tion from  the  menace  of  all  time  will  make  for  a  reaction  so 
tremendous,  so  far-reaching,  so  incalculable  at  present, 
that  what  it  will  produce,  to  what  heights  it  will  attain 
through  the  succeeding  years,  what  inspiring  creations  of 
both  mind  and  soul  it  will  bring  forth,  can  not  be  imaged 
by  any  living  man.  All  this  and  infinitely  more  we  shall 
see,  but — 

We  must  heat  Germany  first! 

THE  :fiND 


14  DAY  USE 

RFTURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below, 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

Tel.  No.  642-3405 
Renewals  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subjea  to  immediate  recall. 


APR  111973 


Rgrunwpn  to 


2  a  B73 


im 


LOAH 


K»C 


L,D21A-20m.3,'73  it„.™f,l°L%?S,.„.-. 

(Q8677sl0)476-A-31  "oiTenyy  M^CaUforma 


^^^^ 


YG  21033 


76 


/ 


V>C4o 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


THE 

\XralE  HOUSE 

S^NfRANCISOO 


